Double Identity
by Elizabeth Shawnessey
Summary: A suspicious news story lures Sam and Dean Winchester to the small town of Green River, Arkansas, but the article is just the tip of the iceberg. Set in season one between "Shadow" and "Hell House"; second in a series; long.
1. Prologue

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

PROLOGUE

Green River Post Office  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Tuesday, June 20, 2006  
>4:34 PM<p>

**G**eneral Manager Michael Kissling had been having a really good day, as Tuesdays around the Green River Post Office commonly were. It was the day of the week where most people came in only to buy stamps or to have a chat while finding out how much it would be to ship a package to family members in the larger cities like Little Rock or Jonesboro. It was the kind of day where Michael was light on his feet and didn't have to watch the clock to know when it was time for lunch or time to leave—since the day just seemed to sail by.

As half past four came and went, Michael took the keys to the front door and turned them twice, a habit he had accumulated since he had first started working there back in high school as a precaution to make sure the building was shut down for the day. Pocketing the jangling metal, he turned on heel from the dim, gray-and-white interior of the office and looked out at the sunny, warm afternoon that was cascading down on Green River. The road outside, the aptly named "Main Street" that lead in and out of town, was wafting with heat as the sun beat unfiltered rays onto the blacktop. On his side, two buildings lined Main: Mel Fitchum Library and Fenton's Pool and Bar—the latter of which he would be returning to later that night. Across the street sat the general store, a real estate office, and the very small Green River Police Department, which was essentially a one-room building housing four officers. The road was otherwise bare except for one brown-and-white truck sitting still in the parking lot outside of the real estate office, its grill facing Michael, and its driver nowhere to be seen.

_New resident, I'll bet! _Michael thought, grinning to himself at the thought of a new face around town. Sometimes seeing the same people everyday that he had seen for the past thirty-five years of his life got a little old, especially in a town where everyone knew everybody's business. Sometimes the people that came into the post office for a shipping estimate were a pair of the town's oldest gossips, Mrs. Brody and Mrs. Fitch, who liked to share a little too much information about the divorce of the Parkers or the "seedy" transactions Mr. Cooper was dealing in the back alley of his general store—despite the fact that there was no back alley, just a vast, empty space. Both women were, of course, nice enough to accept a grin in recognition of their claims and not expect any kind of feedback, but that was probably because that was all they ever got in return. Anything that was said aloud to either woman was bound to be repeated.

But that was how a small town such as Green River worked. With barely over two hundred people inside the city limits, and without a movie theatre at arm's length, the people had to make their own entertainment. Strange claims, juicy divorces, and other squabble was _All My Children _brought to life, and Michael didn't mind it in the slightest—as long as nothing about him was being spread, not that there was anything to say in the first place.

Taking out his keys and reminding himself to ask Mrs. Brody if a house was being bought around town—she was the woman to ask seeing as her husband owned the real estate office across the street—when she came in to ship a care package to her daughter Laurie at University of Arkansas, Michael headed to his gold, '99 Honda Civic parked in the lot between the post office and the library. It was the only one sitting in the thick, two semi truck's-width dirt lot, and almost blended into the ground below it. When Michael had first bought the car from the auto dealer in Searcy, he hadn't liked the paint job nor the sand-colored interior, but now he understood why his wife, Susan, had chosen it. Green River, which he hadn't realized until that day was neither green nor near a river, seemed to kick up more dust than any other place he had been to, though that was a small list. Susan's black CRV was often covered with dirt and had to be cleaned at least once a week, so owning a gold car had been beneficial to him seeing as he didn't want to spend his weekends cleaning off the thick layer of grime that accumulated during the workday.

"Hey, Mike!" a voice called behind him, causing him to whip around just as he was about to put the key into the car door. "Long time, no see, buddy!"

Shielding his eyes against the bright sun, Michael could see Fenton Banks, the owner of the pool hall on the other side of the library, with the customary towel swung over his shoulder. It seemed to be there no matter what the occasion, either tending bar or not, and appeared out of place whenever it was missing from its perch. Even now, as he headed toward Michael's Civic with his sandy blonde hair soaking up the rays, his hands grabbed absently for the white cloth as if getting ready to clean a glass while talking.

"Only since last week, Fent," Michael said, reaching out and shaking the man's free hand. "I'll be there tonight, though. Don't think I'm skipping out on you now!"

"It wouldn't be the first time," Fenton joked with a sly wink. "I know how frivolous you can be when it comes to nights out with the guys. I know you'd rather spend your time at that strip joint over in Jacksonville."

Michael laughed, knowing full well that Fenton was poking fun at him. In the past ten years since the Tuesday night meet-up between the two of them and a couple of guys they had gone to high school with, Michael had always arrived early and had never skipped a session, regardless if he was sick or out of town. He always made sure to make it. It had earned him nicknames over the years such as "Mr. Reliable" or "Old Faithful", but he didn't mind it. In fact, Michael prided himself of his timeliness and attendance, something that had always been pointed out and used as an example both in school and in the workplace.

"What's on the agenda tonight, Fent? Same old, same old?" Michael grinned.

"Well, since the wives would have our heads if we did anything different, yeah," Fenton chuckled, elbowing Michael in the ribs. "Though I think we should switch it up and have a shot of whiskey instead of our everyday brews."

"Oh, I don't know!" Michael said, putting on a voice of false astonishment. "I think Susan would put me in the doghouse for such a radical idea!"

"Yeah, yeah," Fenton laughed, clapping his hand on Michael's shoulder. "Speaking of, how is that old broad? Haven't talked to her since… shoot, I can't even remember. She and the kids still doing alright?"

"Better than," Michael smiled. "Susan's still working on the novel she's been writing since Christmas and the kids are bouncing off the walls in excitement. I told them I'd take them to the lake this weekend and they haven't calmed down since. I'm pretty sure Susan is going to punish me for that one later on. Probably can't concentrate with all the noise they've been making since school's been out, made worse by the anticipation of staying up at Lake Conway." Michael paused for a minute to laugh at the idea of his eight-year-old twins, Anna and Harold, bothering Susan with questions about camping. "What about you and yours?"

"Same as always, Mike, same as always. Milly's still pregnant and her mom still won't leave," Fenton grinned. "I'm about ready to kick that old bat out of my house."

"Don't blame you," Michael grimaced, remembering how loud and demanding Gertrude Wells, Fenton's mother-in-law, could be. The last time he had encountered her had been at a barbeque at a friend's house, and the old woman had been insisting that the chef was hell-bent on giving her salmonella. Shaking off the memory, Michael cleared his throat, then turned to put his key into the door of his car, certain he'd hear more of Mrs. Wells' antics later tonight. "Anyway, I better get a move on and relieve Susan of her warden duties so she can get dinner on the table. See you tonight, alright?"

"Alright, alright," Fenton nodded, shaking Michael's hand again before turning to leave. "Don't be late!"

Smiling to himself, Michael sank into the driver's side of his Civic and started the engine, watching as Fenton returned to his bar with the towel back on his shoulder. Pulling out of the alley, he shot a glance at the brown-and-white truck to see if the driver was inside, but saw that the cab was still empty.

_Oh, well. Guess I'll find out tomorrow morning_.

* * *

><p>After a quiet dinner with the kids' occasional questions about camping, a short chat with his wife about her day while he helped her clean up, and a quick change of clothes, Michael stared at his reflection in the mirror to make sure none of the Hamburger Helper Susan had cooked for dinner had gotten on his face. All that stared back at him was his olive skin, dark eyes and hair, and the distinct Italian nose he had inherited from his mother.<p>

Smoothing his hair back with his hands for a second time, Michael nodded to his reflection and headed back into the living room. By that time, night was on the horizon and the kids had been settled down in front of a DVD of _Spongebob Squarepants _playing on loop.

Kissing Susan on the cheek then going to hug his distracted twins, Michael bid them all goodnight—with the promise to return at a reasonable hour—before making his way out the front door and locking it twice.

The air was crisp and clean for a late-June night, and breeze swayed the trees as Michael made his way down the twisted walk of his brick-front, ranch-style home to his Civic parked in the driveway. Though he knew a night of drinking and pool was ahead, he always made sure that he was under the legal limit before making his way back home. Despite the fact that the police department was small, and despite the fact that Michael was friends with all four officers, he didn't want to take the chance of being sighted with a DUI. Things like that spread quickly, and would probably affect his job. The manager of the post office before him had been arrested for the same thing, which was how Michael had come into the position in the first place.

Pulling out of his driveway, Michael looked in the rearview mirror for oncoming traffic before switching gears into drive. As he looked at the dark, empty street with only two houses aside from his own on both sides, he saw an odd thing: the truck that had been sitting outside of Mr. Brody's real estate office was now parked beside the front gate of the Williams' home, the front of it facing the same direction as the Civic. Mr. and Mrs. Williams, from what Michael had learned in the ten years he had been their neighbor, had hardly any relatives that they were on good terms with, so it was unlikely that the truck belonged to someone they knew.

Waiting a long minute as his car idled in the middle of the rural road, Michael's eyes strained to see into the dark cab of the old Ford, only taking in the red lights of his bumper reflecting off the windshield. Swallowing hard and shrugging, he lifted his foot off the brake and headed back into town, toward Fenton's bar.

Black blurs sailed past his window as he drove. A little way down, Michael sent a furtive glance into the rearview mirror to ensure that he was the only one on the dark stretch of highway. Though the reflection test came up blank, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being followed. That truck showing up twice in the same day couldn't be coincidence.

Rolling his shoulders back in an attempt to appease himself, Michael reached forward to tap on the radio then continued to sink comfortably into the cloth seats of his car. As the quiet strains of Coldplay hovered over the road noise, he became eased that this was all part of his imagination.

Ten miles passed before he saw something that changed his mind.

Fifteen minutes outside of Main Street, Michael saw the blinding headlights of a large vehicle in his driver's side mirror. Speeding up and tuning out the sounds of "Shiver", Michael attempted to put enough distance between him and the driver so that the lights would reflect off of the ground rather than straight into his eyes. Ultimately, all the large beast—which was either a truck or SUV, he couldn't be sure—did was follow closer behind. Though he couldn't see the car, he could only imagine it to be within an inch of his bumper, causing him to want to floor the Civic. In a moment of rash decision-making, he did. The Civic buckled under the horsepower, having never gone over sixty miles per hour, before quickening its pace.

As the odometer sailed past seventy and eighty, Michael bit his lip and checked the rearview mirror again. The bigger automobile was now a safe distance behind, having slowed down to what he would guess was forty, giving him the reassurance he needed to take his foot off the gas and let the Civic coast.

When he was almost back in town, Michael let out the deep breath he hadn't realized he had been holding and took in another. Turning onto Main Street, he could see Fenton's in the distance, but the squeal of tires took over his attention. Looking in the rearview mirror, the truck he had seen outside of the real estate office and outside of the Williams', which he now saw to be the same one trying to run him off the road, came screeching around the corner before barreling toward Michael's Civic.

There was a sharp crunch of metal as the truck's grill hit the Civic's trunk, and both cars suddenly spun out of control. As Michael tried to keep his car from fishtailing into Mr. Cooper's general store, he half-wondered why the truck was after him. In the past week, the only surly person he had dealt with had been a customer of Fenton's he had met during his morning break on Thursday, who had been refused alcohol before 10 A.M—but that was because it was state law. This guy, though driving erratically, didn't seem to be the man who had stumbled into the post office smelling strongly of bourbon. He doubted a disgruntled alcoholic would take such severe steps to get back at the man who had escorted him out of a building in the most genial way he could. This was… _something else._

As the car finally came to a rough stop, Michael stayed frozen behind the wheel, unsure what to do. He could continue driving and hope the truck would stay where it was long enough for him to lose it, or he could get out and confront the man.

Deciding on the latter, Michael pushed open the door with a shaky hand and swallowed hard as he got to his feet, not bothering to turn off the engine. The man in the truck, it seemed, had come to the same conclusion, and Michael watched as the door to the cab swung open and a pair of cowboy boots hit the pavement below. There was a jingle of metal, like spurs, followed by the crunching of feet on the uneven asphalt, reminding him of one of those Westerns his son loved to watch on weekend nights.

Looking up, he saw a dark face hidden in shadow from the one overhead streetlamp. As the man came closer, Michael suddenly felt uncertain of his decision to confront the driver, and as the stranger crept toward the headlights of his truck, dread washed over him. The man that stood there, dressed in the cowboy boots, acid-wash jeans, and the button-up shirt of a rodeo cowboy, was wearing his face. All too familiar brown hair, brown eyes, large nose, and thin lips stared back at him as if he were looking in a distorted mirror.

Jumping back as his cowboy double came near, Michael put the hood of his car between them, the headlights of his Civic brightly illuminating the slacks and polo shirt he was wearing.

"Who… who are you?" Michael stammered, earning him a mischievous grin from his clone. "Don't come any closer!"

Without a word, Michael's look-alike sank into the driver's side of his Civic and slammed the door shut. As the brake lights flashed from red to white while the double changed gears and revved the engine, Michael stood stunned and rooted to the spot as the headlights of his car illuminated the driver inside. On his own face, he saw the twisted smile of his double before the car peeled away from where it had stopped right outside of Cooper's General and plowed him to the ground.

The last thing Michael remembered was the quiet strains of Coldplay carrying through the windows of his car as the tires thumped mercilessly over his chest.

"_Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones…_"


	2. Chapter One

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

ONE

The Kissling Residence  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Wednesday, June 21, 2006  
>5:18 PM<p>

**S**am Winchester sat in the passenger's seat of his older brother, Dean's, 1967 Chevrolet Impala as it sped down a country road, a copy of the _Log Cabin Democrat_—the neighboring town's newspaper—folded in his hands to display the article he had been reading for hours on end since discovering one similar to it in the _Louisville Courier-Journal_. It was an article detailing the reason why they were here, in a small town somewhere near the middle of Arkansas that didn't seem to have much going for it aside from the wild story that had been plastered across every newspaper, paranormal blog, and even the odd Christian website.

He had first found it while sitting in a diner back in Louisville, Kentucky after working a job there involving the ghost of a witch who had been attacking people distantly related to a handful of women that had hung her seventy years ago. The adrenaline, he supposed, hadn't worn off from the previous night's hunt and was still pumping, causing Sam to want to get to their next case as soon as possible. Thankfully, he had found this one the minute he had opened the front page of the _Courier-Journal_ and hadn't needed to talk his brother into working this one like he had with their job back in Louisville.

Sam and Dean Winchester weren't normal guys. In fact, they were as far from normal as possible. Their dad, John, had raised them to be Hunters—a group of people who put their lives on the line to defend the rest of the world from the supernatural—and had left them on Halloween night to pick up where he had left off while he went chasing after the demon that had killed their mother, Mary, when Sam was six months old. The night Dean had shown up in Sam's living room to alert him that their father had left his post, Sam had been disgruntled and begrudging, not really wanting to leave the comfort of the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, Jessica, to rejoin a life he had thought he had left in the dust. Apparently his first instincts about staying where he was had been the right one, seeing as when he returned from hunting a Woman in White on an abandoned stretch of road in Jericho, California, Sam walked into the place he and Jess had called their own only to find her dead—pinned to the ceiling above his bed in the same way his mother had died twenty-two years ago to the day. Without anywhere else to go, Sam had rejoined Dean on the path their father had laid out for them, but the transition hadn't been easy.

From almost day one, Sam had had trouble sleeping, and rightfully so. Not only was the death of Jessica weighing heavily on his mind, but it seemed as if he brain didn't want him to forget it by replaying her final moments over and over again every time he shut his eyes to go to sleep, resulting in a snappy, sleepless Sam that took his frustration out on Dean whenever possible. As time went on, the nightmares of Jess began to lessen, only to be replaced with upsetting visions of people about to die. At first, they had come to him as flashes of images, but soon developed into full-blown dreams about people he had never met in a place he had never been. Though they didn't happen all that often, Sam still had a hard time adjusting to his new-found ability when they did. The headaches that accompanied them were something fierce, something that not even a bottle of aspirin could kill.

Clearing his throat, Sam turned back to the article he had nearly memorized by now and let his eyes scan it once more:

MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL IN SMALL TOWN

**GREEN RIVER, ARK. **– It's said that good things come in small packages, and some miracles come in small favors, but it seems as if both are true for Michael Kissling, 35, of Green River, Arkansas, who survived being run down by his own car on Tuesday evening.

Kissling, who manages the post office on Main Street, told reporters Tuesday night that he was standing outside of his 1999 Honda Civic, helping a stray rabbit that he was afraid he had run over cross the street, when his car suddenly lurched forward and rolled over him.

"I don't know what happened," said Kissling. "One minute, I was standing there trying to pick up one of those hares when I heard the engine to my car rev. The next second, I was on the ground staring up at the underbelly. The only thing I could think about at the time were my wife and children and not seeing them again. It was terrifying."

According to Kissling, the car only rolled a few feet before he was able to get up and chase it down, narrowly avoiding the front of the Green River Police Department. When asked for a statement on what they saw, GRPD choose not to reply.

Still, the father of two couldn't be any more grateful than he already is, attributing his survival to "The Man Upstairs" for giving him a second chance.

Letting out a deep breath, Sam set the newspaper down once again and bit his lip. Cases like this always made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The article seemed normal enough, since it was perfectly plausible that the car _had_ rolled forward on its own due to some kind of brake malfunction, but something about it seemed odd.

In his and Dean's line of work, they had run into anything and everything—werewolves, skinwalkers, spirits, and demons—and most of the cases they found started out sounding innocent enough. A majority of it, Sam had figured long ago, was due to the fact that three-fourths of journalists and bloggers edited out the strange-sounding details to keep from scaring their readers. However, there was the remaining one-fourth who kept all the information in and also sounded like a lunatic, so sorting through those claims were equally difficult. But he and his brother had been doing this job for a long time, and when something sounded weird, it usually was, which was probably why Dean had agreed to this case at once.

For the past month, Sam and Dean had been ordered to stay on lockdown in a motel room in Fort Wayne, Indiana ever since coming into contact with a team of demons who were intent on killing their father. At first, Sam had agreed to the hole-up, thinking it wouldn't last more than a few days and spent that time catching up on very normal news stories. After a week had passed without a call back from Dad, who Sam knew was also in hiding, he had begun to grow restless. He had taken a break from school to hunt, and if he wasn't doing that, there was no reason he shouldn't return to Stanford and pick up where he left off by taking summer classes. Unfortunately, when he presented that idea to Dean, his brother had exploded, the words "deserter" and "selfish" coming out of his mouth a few dozen times. It was almost enough to sent Sam packing, but he thought better of it and stayed quiet.

Eventually, the restlessness had come back, sending him into late-night drives and early mornings in diners, before finally stumbling on a workable case in Louisville, Kentucky. Dean hadn't wanted to go, that much had been obvious, but once he saw that the Waverly Hill Sanitarium had been up to no good, his brother had been on board, even admitting at the end that Sam had been right all along.

Still, that didn't change the fact that Sam missed the normalcy of Stanford more than he had missed hunting during the month on lockdown. There would be times where he felt the need to go back to school to have some boring, intellectual debate about poly-centric cultural norms just to shake the swallowing feeling that hunting was becoming his one and only future.

Sighing, Sam kicked the thought away and looked out the window. His own reflection stared back at him in the bright glass of the Impala, though distorted to make his long, thin face topped with tousled ash brown hair and punctuated with emerald-colored eyes, an up-turned nose, and full lips seem gaunt and pale.

"Hey, you alright?" Dean's deep voice asked to his left, causing Sam to snap out of examining his reflection to look at his brother.

"I'm fine," Sam lied, hoping that Dean was only asking due to the quiet that filled the car aside from the strains of "Dazed and Confused". At his brother's demanding look, Sam sighed and rolled his eyes before indicating the newspaper in his lap. "Just trying to figure this out before we get there."

"Always working, Sammy," Dean nodded.

Figuring his brother had accepted his less-than-truthful answer, Sam gave Dean a small grin before turning to look at him. Dean's profile was different than Sam's in many ways: where Sam's nose sloped upward, his brother's was straight with a bump at the bridge from when he had broken it on a hunt during their teenage years; where Sam's eyes were deep-set, Dean's were large and almond-shaped; and where Sam had features similar to their father's, Dean resembled their mother—or as much as Sam could see in pictures, anyway.

It was their difference in looks that allowed them to hunt the way they did, pretending to be FBI agents or newspaper reporters, without anyone giving them a second glance. Though Sam and Dean were brothers, it was only with the finest eye that someone could spot the likeness between them, and Sam liked it that way. Their difference in appearance was equal to their difference in personalities—which were also polar opposites. Dean was loud and confident where as Sam was quiet and awkward. Whether it was an older brother, younger brother thing, he didn't know. What he did know was that it worked for them, both as people and as Hunters, and they were about to put that dynamic to good use.

As the Impala slowed to a stop outside of a brick-front, ranch-style home, Dean let the car idle as the pair stared up at the house. The house itself was long and flat, with a stone walkway that twisted and turned in two directions: one that lead to a driveway where a black CRV was parked while another winded its way directly toward where they were stalling. Trees lined the yard, along with a low fence, as if to let the neighbors spaced out around them know where the properly line was drawn. Green grass cloaked the rest of the enclosure, moist as if just watered down, with one of those old-fashioned sprinklers fastened to a hose near an old oak tree with a tire swing hanging from its branches.

"So this is where Miracle Man lives?" Dean asked, killing the engine and popping open the door.

"That's what it says," Sam answered, pulling a scribbled note from his pocket to check the address against the numbers tacked to the front of the house. "6536 Grouse Run."

"Hmm," was all Dean said, getting to his feet and stretching. Sam did the same, only his stretching was accompanied by the satisfying crack of his knees unbending from his long legs having been folded in an uncomfortable position for the greater part of eight hours. At the sound, Dean smirked. "Nice. Old man."

"Shut up."

"So, what are we today?" Dean asked, glancing down at his jeans and t-shirt as if to make sure he wasn't wearing anything that would betray their cover. "Obviously not FBI."

"Reporters from _News of the Weird _magazine."

"Does that even exist?" Dean laughed.

"No, but I doubt they know that," Sam grinned, despite his mood. "When you were in the bathroom at that rest stop back in Bradford, I called them and told them we were doing a piece on Michael Kissling's miraculous survival. They jumped at the chance to talk to us."

"That's my boy," Dean said as he rounded the front of the car and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "C'mon. Let's go talk to these poor saps before the sun goes down."

Nodding, Sam followed Dean up the twisting walk to the front door and waited while his brother pounded his fist against the solid wood. It was a little rough, but Dean didn't generally do things gently. After a few minutes, a short, plump woman, about mid-thirties, with mousey brown hair and gray eyes appeared in the threshold, looking as if she had just woken up. "Hi!"

"Uh, hi," Dean said, visibly surprised at the woman's enthusiasm by the way he leaned back. "Are you Susan Kissling?"

"That's me," she replied, running a hand through her hair as if that would help the frazzled state it was in. "Excuse my appearance. Michael said we would have time to… um, never mind." Blush reddened her cheeks as she threw an embarrassed glance at the ground. "Anyway, come in. I'll get my husband and get cleaned up. Do you want anything to drink?"

"No, thank you," Sam answered before his brother could suggest a couple of beers.

"Alright!" Susan said, freeing up the doorway for Sam and Dean to pass her.

When they were inside, Sam's eyes began to scan the interior of the house. The walls in the hallway and two rooms on either side were the white color of an undecorated living space, with nothing hanging off of them except a framed painting of a fruit basket above the couch in the sitting area to the right. The room to the left was nearly empty aside from a golden chest and a couple of laid-out yoga mats. Susan pointed to the former and lead them to the sofa. "Wait right here. I'll be back in two shakes."

At that, the woman turned on heel and disappeared back into the hallway. When she seemed out of earshot, Dean leaned forward and looked at Sam. "That woman's… _excitable_."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Sam agreed, letting his eyes browse the interior of what he would guess to be the living room, which was just as empty as the rest of the house except for a television in the corner with a DVD rack leaning against the wall beside it. Nothing strange or suspicious stuck out to him.

A minute later, Susan returned, her hair up in a ponytail and her pajamas switched out for a tracksuit, with who could only be Michael Kissling attached to her arm. Their hands were intertwined so tightly it was obvious to Sam that Michael was feeling the pressure of her grip by the pained look on his face. Attempting to shake her off, Michael pried himself loose using his other hand and flexed his fingers once they were free.

"Honey, these are the men from _World Weekly News _magazine!" Susan said, her voice squeaking in excitement.

"Uh, it's _News of the Weird _magazine," Sam corrected her with a small smile, then stood up to offer his hand to Michael. "I hope we're not here at a bad time. We can come back at a more decent hour if—"

"Nonsense," Michael grinned, waving off Sam's offer before accepting his handshake. "I'm glad you're here."

"Oh, yeah?" Dean frowned. "Why's that?"

"Spread the word and all that. I've always wanted to be famous for something!"

"Well, now's your chance," Dean mumbled sarcastically, leaning forward to retrieve the small notebook he had placed in his back pocket somewhere between here and Bradford while Sam pulled out the EMF meter that could easily be construed as a beat-up tape recorder. "So, Mr. Kissling—"

"Michael."

"_Michael_," Dean smirked. "In your own words: what happened last night?"

In the pause between Dean's question and Michael's answer, Sam noticed that Susan had leaned against the wall beside the television and crossed her arms over her chest, her expression eager to hear the story for what he was sure to be close to the hundredth time. Michael shot her a sly smile before taking a deep breath and beginning:

"Well, it was just like every other night. I was driving to Fenton's bar on Main and saw a rabbit hopping across the street. I didn't think anything of it from the distance and thought it would make it by the time I got to where it was, but it suddenly stopped hopping in the middle of the road and I was sure I had hit it. So, I pulled over to the side of the road and saw that it was gone. When I looked down, it was at my feet, and I bent to pick it up. That's when the car started rolling forward and ran me down."

"Would you say it hit you hard?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked the man up and down. Dark brown hair, hooded brown eyes, and a thin frame stared back at him without a bruise or a scratch. "You seem alright."

"I told him to go to the hospital!" Susan piped up, pushing herself away from the wall and biting back an excited smile. "But he just wouldn't have it. He came home, his car a _wreck_, and wouldn't tell me what happened. Just ignored me and went straight to bed."

"Your car was wrecked? That wouldn't happen to be the black one out in the driveway, would it?" Dean asked, though Sam knew Dean knew different.

"No, no. That one's mine," Susan grinned. "He drives a Civic."

"How did your car get wrecked if it rolled forward on its own?"

Sam recognized the skepticism in Dean's tone and cleared his throat before his brother could ask any more questions that might scare away the Kisslings. At the lapse in conversation, Michael smiled and shook his head. "On my way back from the ordeal, I went to help our neighbor across the street, Mr. Keiser, with his trashcans. Unfortunately, it was too dark to see and I accidentally backed my car up into them. Safe to say, I won't be helping that guy anytime soon."

"Good Samaritan," Dean murmured, causing Sam to smirk to himself.

"Anything else I can answer for you, gentlemen?" Michael asked, his voice suddenly rough. "If not, my wife and I would like some time alone, if you don't mind."

Taking the man's raunchy wink as a signal that their interview was over, Sam grabbed his EMF meter and shut it off while Dean shoved his notebook back into his pocket. Shaking Michael's hand again, Sam held back and let his brother lead the way out of the house and down the walkway. When the door behind them was shut, the two remained silent until they were in the privacy of the Impala.

"Is it just me or was something up with that guy?" Dean asked, shooting Sam a look as he reached forward to stick the keys in the ignition.

"Not just you," Sam sighed. "Something was definitely up. A lot of the things he said didn't make sense. Either he's making the whole thing up or—"

"_Or_ he's hiding something," Dean finished for him with a nod before starting the car. At the roar of the engine, Dean paused for a minute to listen to the growl before snapping back into the conversation. "I think the first step is to find that car and see if there's any kind of mechanical failures—y'know, something that would cause it to act up."

"How're we gonna do that? We don't even know if he put it in the shop."

"He did," Dean said, putting the Impala into drive and making a U-turn to head back into town using the Kisslings' driveway. "If the guy wants credibility, he's gonna put his car in the shop. If he's seen driving that thing around after it ran him over, it would kill the realism of his story and make it look like he made the whole thing up."

Taking his word for it, Sam nodded and leaned back in his seat while Dean drove. After a few minutes of watching the spaced-out farm houses pass by as blurs in the window, a thought suddenly struck him. "How do you know where he took it?"

"Town this small can't have many body shops. I'm betting he took it to the one we passed by near the Interstate."

"Alright," Sam frowned, returning his gaze to the road, watching as the green and brown grass mixed together with the blue horizon and occasional white house. The landscape reminded him of Lawrence, Kansas from the one time he had been. On the drive in, it had been nothing but flat land and abandoned barns, but he had liked the spacious surroundings. It had given him a temporary feeling of home, like he was returning to a place that held a significance to him. That feeling, though, was quickly wiped away the moment he had walked inside his family's old house and been attacked by the poltergeist living there. Since then, he hadn't been fond of empty plains, especially since wherever he went that contained them meant something bad was either happening or about to happen—and Sam had a feeling this time wouldn't be any different.

Looking over at Dean, Sam saw that his brother was driving on autopilot, his brain clearly elsewhere. Deciding not to disturb him, Sam relaxed farther into his seat and stared out the window.


	3. Chapter Two

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

TWO

Costa Automotive Repair  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Wednesday, June 21, 2006  
>6:23 PM<p>

"**Y**ep, got 'er in this morn'," repair shop owner Jim Costa answered as he hunched over the front desk near the middle of a steel-gray room with auto parts covering the walls. The man was at least fifty, with a prominent beer gut and a trucker cap covering what was sure to be a bald head. His smoke-colored eyes were the same shade as the painted walls, which were the same color as some of the things tacked to it.

When he had first walked into the office, Dean had been surprised to see the place. The floors weren't clean, the glass door was hardly see-through, and the pictures hanging near a door to a separate room could use some dusting, but Dean had to admit, the space had kind of a tranquility to it. The sound of metal-on-metal grinding outside, the hum of the hydraulics lifting a vehicle off the ground, and even the odd shout of "Olly, get your ass back to work!" coming through the door calmed him down.

When he was younger, in the days before he knew what Dad really did for a living, Dean had always imagined himself working with cars. He saw the way Dad handled the Impala and the way he could fix it using a set of tools and his bare hands, and to Dean, that was the epitome of a happy career. Before long, he had started learning how to tune up a carburetor and change the oil, the dream of becoming a mechanic when he "grew up" becoming all the more real to him. Unfortunately, the dream didn't last. By the time he was twelve, Dean had learned the truth about his future, the pre-destined plan that he was to take up the family business, him and Sammy, before and after their Dad was gone. Thankfully, in the time between hunts, Dean got to practice at least some of what he had learned from Dad—though most of what he knew about fixing cars came from auto magazines and books. It was what calmed him down and kept his head screwed on straight, which he especially needed now that Dad was missing in action and hadn't called in at least a month to let his sons know where he was. Dean worried, but hunting and the Impala kept him grounded. Without those two things, he didn't know where he would be.

"What'd yew say yew needed ta see 'er fir, 'gin?" Jim asked, his heavy Southern accent slurring his words in a way that was almost incomprehensible.

"We're with the Honda manufacturing plant," Dean lied, hoping that the man wouldn't try to ask for ID since neither he nor Sam, who was staring at a hubcap tacked to a wall near the door, had any to show. The two had decided that they wouldn't try to use their magazine cover to get in to see the Civic, seeing as both of them doubted it would gain them access. They had also decided that Sam would remain silent and out of the way, since between the two Winchester brothers, Sam was the least knowledgeable about cars—which was pretty much the _only_ thing Sam was clueless about—and would probably blow their cover if questions started being asked.

"Alrigh'. Lemme jus' check on this here computer an' see if she's bin werked on."

Dean nodded and waited for the man to bow his head and focus on the monitor in front of him before shooting a look at Sam. His brother raised his eyebrows in the question of _Are we good_?, in which Dean smiled in return.

The people in Green River didn't seem too concerned with checking for identification, which Dean figured would work in their favor since he didn't see a copy shop around town to make a few fake badges if need be. The Kisslings hadn't bothered to keep the name of the magazine Sam and Dean claimed to work for straight, nor did they bother to ask anything else involving the article the two "reporters" were working on. It seemed the same was true about Jim Costa. The man had taken Dean's word for it when he said he worked for Honda without asking for a name or a phone number to double check.

_Either these people are really dumb or really trusting_.

"Got 'er," Jim said, breaking Dean out of his thoughts. "Hasn't bin werked on yit."

"Do you think we can check her out?" Dean asked, feeling weird calling a '99 Honda Civic a "her" considering he only referred to his '67 Impala in the female sense. At the mention of "we", Jim raised his eyebrow and scratched his temple. Deciding to cut to the chase, Dean beckoned toward Sam, who was hanging back near the door. "That intern over there. He's new to the company and, between you and me, a little _too_ eager to get himself a desk job, if you know what I mean. The quicker he's out of my hair, the better."

"I 'ear yew," Jim smiled, revealing yellowed teeth with one missing on the left side. It took all of Dean's willpower not to recoil at the grin, but instead smirked in reply. "I'll take yew bolth out back 'ere in jus' a min'. Gotta use the John firs'."

Nodding, Dean turned and headed toward Sam while Jim disappeared in a room beside the front desk. As he got closer, Dean could see his brother's brow was furrowed in confusion. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. We're good. He just had to hit the head before we head out."

At this, Sam frowned. "Something about this town bugs me."

"Like the fact that they don't seem to ask for ID?" Dean supplied quietly, shooting a glance over his shoulder in case Jim had reemerged.

"Not just that, though that is a big part of it," Sam whispered. "I don't know. It's like they're too trusting or something. We could probably stroll into a bank right now and claim to be millionaires and they'd fork over some dough without any questions asked."

"Maybe it's that small town thing. You know, everybody knows everybody, so they've gotten used to not checking into things," Dean frowned as Jim appeared in the doorway he had disappeared from. "Look, let's just take one thing at a time, alright? Check up on the car, see if there's anything wrong with it, _then_ wonder if small-towners are crazy."

Sighing, Sam nodded. "Yeah, alright."

"Yew boys ready?" Jim asked as he finished buttoning the shirt he had been stuffing back into the front of his two-sizes-too-small pants. The brothers nodded in reply, earning them another yellow, toothless grin. "Wail, c'mon thin."

Leading the way, Dean followed Jim past the front desk and out a door to the back. Bright orange sunlight seared Dean's eyes for a minute from the difference between the dark office and waning light of day, and he stopped to blink a couple of times before continuing toward a gold sedan parked in the middle of what looked like a automotive graveyard. To his right, two vehicles were up on hydraulic lifts as two men worked beneath each one, while the entire left half of the lot was covered with dusted-over, rusted cars, some underneath tarps while most were exposed to the elements.

"This's 'er," Jim said, stopping beside the gold Civic. "Don' know what ta tell yew boys 'cept the guy tha' brung 'er in said the ol' girl ran 'im down. Jus' tol' me ta repair 'er and let 'er go. Easy 'nough werk seein' as on'y the caboose's bashed in."

Dean's eyes fell on the back of the car a few feet in front of him. Sure enough, the top of the trunk was scratched and dented, as if something had hit it from behind. Stepping closer, Dean peered at the chipped paint and indentations heading toward the back window, stopping only an inch short of shattering the glass. "The guy say what caused this?"

"Wail, 'e came in 'ere spewing all sortsa infermation tha' I wasn' much listenin' to. I think 'e said somethin' 'bout a trash can, but I can' be sure," Jim answered with a slow shake of his head. "Man, I knew tha' guy was jus' blowin' smoke up my ass. Ain' no trash can causin' this. Didn' get a good look at it 'till now."

Before Dean could ask anything else, one of the men working underneath a lift called for Jim. "Damn. 'Scuse me a min', gents. Got sum stupid questions ta answer."

As the man turned to leave, Dean waited until he was out of earshot before looking at his brother. Sam seemed just as fixated on the scratches as he was, nearing the back of the car and pressing a finger to one of the dents. "He had to have been hit from behind. These marks look almost identical to those cars that were wrecked after that racist truck in Mississippi hit them. Think we have the same deal?"

"No," Dean smirked, rounding to the front of the car as he thought about their case in Mississippi and Cassie. Snapping out of it, Dean cleared his throat. "With that thing, it didn't leave any survivors." Suddenly, Dean stopped just as he was about to open his mouth and make another comment. The front of the car, it seemed, was covered with a brown and red residue, as if someone had attempted to cover up the blood on the grill by tossing dirt onto the sticky liquid and hoping for the best. Kneeling down, Dean reached his hand blindly under the car and felt around, not sure what he was looking for until he found it. Something soft and frayed met his fingers as he patted near the underside of the engine. "Got something."

Sam headed to his side as Dean removed whatever he had felt, grimacing at what he saw once it was free: a patch of dark hair with the scalp still attached hung limply from Dean's grasp. Kneeling down so that the front of the car hid his giant frame, Sam took the mass from Dean's hand before he could drop it in revulsion and gave it a closer look. "I'd say Michael Kissling didn't survive."

"Then what the hell were we talking to in his living room? Shapeshifter?"

"I don't know," Sam frowned, "but we better find out before we go charging in after the guy. If we go in prepared to take down a shapeshifter and he winds up being something else, then we're screwed."

"Alright," Dean said, glancing at the patch of hair again. "Get rid of that thing, will you? I doubt Jim the auto repair man will believe our cover if he comes over here and sees you holding that."

Nodding, Sam stood up and turned his back to the front office before tossing the patch of hair into the car graveyard. As the blur of black and red sailed deeper into the rusted skeletons, Dean about faced to peer out at the landscape while Jim made his way back to them. "Yew two admirin' my yard?"

"Something like that," Dean replied, looking down at Jim before nudging Sam with his elbow. "Anyway, I think we're done here. If we need anything else, we'll come back."

"Thank you for your time," Sam said cordially, causing Dean to want to roll his eyes.

"Alrigh'. Yew boys need anythin', gimme a call. We're open 'til the sun goes down."

Grinning in response, Dean clapped his hand on Sam's shoulder before heading back through the office and toward the Impala parked by the curb.


	4. Chapter Three

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

THREE

Main Street Motel  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Wednesday, June 21, 2006  
>8:47 PM<p>

**I**f Sam didn't know any better, he would have confused the Main Street Motel with a barn, both inside and out. The façade of the building was the red wood of such, while the interior of their room was papered with cartoon livestock, straw-colored bedspreads, and pitchforks tacked to the walls. Upon first entering their "suite", as the desk clerk had called it with a chipper smile, he and Dean had stood in the doorway with frowns on both of their faces. Even now, an hour later, the grimace didn't seem to be fading.

Unfortunately, this motel was the only one for the next twenty miles, so both he and his brother had to ignore the strange décor for bigger fish, which was what they had been doing in the gap of time between now and when they had left Costa's Auto Repair. The finding of the hair and part of the scalp pointed to strange activity, but neither Sam nor Dean seemed to have any idea what that activity was.

When Sam had first read the story in the newspaper back in Louisville, he had been certain that they were dealing with either a truck acting on its own or some kind of spirit. As he suggested the case to Dean, he had been surprised at his brother's willingness to investigate, thinking that Dean would automatically debunk the claim and look for something else. Apparently the vibes the article had given Sam had also struck his older brother.

Now that they had a case, however, they were stuck. With no clue as to what had _actually _happened the night the Honda Civic had run down Michael Kissling, and with no idea as to whether the man was still alive—though all signs pointed to no—Sam was searching the Internet for anything that might be considered similar to what they were dealing with now. Ultimately, though, his search was running shallow. With no reports of someone being trampled, hit, or plowed down by their own vehicle surfacing on the web—except for one woman who claimed she saw her ghost driving her car, but she had been committed to a mental hospital a year before that—Sam was forced into checking for dirt on the Kisslings. Unfortunately, all he could find was a clean slate.

Glancing up, Sam shot a furrowed look at Dean and let out a sigh. His brother was lying on the bed, his legs sprawled out around the right corner, with Dad's journal held over him. The book was old and overused, with the binding bowing under the weight of gravity in the middle, and as Dean turned a page from his flat position, one of the leaflets from inside fell onto his chest. Before returning it to where it belonged, he glanced at it and shoved whatever it was back into a hidden pocket in the cover.

As if feeling his brother's gaze, Dean propped himself up with one elbow and raised an eyebrow in a silent, "What do you want?" before repositioning himself against the headboard. Shaking his head, Sam looked back down at the computer screen and bit his lip, wondering if his brother was any closer to finding something than he was.

Suddenly, as if reading his brother's mind, Dean snapped Dad's journal shut and tossed it toward the end of his bed. "Man…"

"What?" Sam frowned.

"Nothing in there about cars that run people over on their own, unless they're _possessed_ cars, which I don't think so. You did an EMF sweep on that thing right?" Dean didn't wait for Sam's nod to keep going. "So I think it's high time we talk to the locals."

"You just want an excuse to head to that bar down the road," Sam smirked.

"Damn right I do, Sammy. You comin'?"

Taking a minute to consider it, Sam tapped his fingers absently against the base of his laptop before shaking his head. "No. I think you should go solo on this one. I'll try to see if I can find anything on Michael Kissling."

"You can do that in the bar, you know," Dean said with an eye-roll. "I'm sure they have Hi-Fi or whatever the hell it's called."

"Wi-Fi," Sam grinned. "And I'm sure they do, too. I just think I should keep at it without any distractions is all. You go and do some thinking with your downstairs brain, alright? Call me if you find anything."

"Sam Winchester telling me to chat up the ladies," Dean laughed as he shrugged on his leather jacket. "Hell must've frozen over."

* * *

><p>As Dean walked into Fenton's Pool and Bar, he hadn't expected it to be so dark or crowded. The inside was dimly lit with the overhead lamps often seen hanging over pool tables, while neon signs advertising beer brands illuminated the bar section of the large, pentagon-shaped room. Bodies, mainly male, filled the booths and stools between an L-shaped countertop and empty stage, and while there were a few women, two brunettes and a blonde, sitting randomly along the bar, all three of them looked as if they were only there because they were waiting for someone to finish their billiards game.<p>

The bartender, a tall, thin man with sandy hair and a hunched posture, was toward the end of the L, talking to the blonde woman sitting alone. Deciding that was as good a place as any to start "asking around", Dean rolled his shoulders back and beelined toward them. As he approached, he could hear the girl's voice over the crash of pool balls—raspy with a thick Australian accent—telling the bartender how she was taking a road trip with her father before heading back to Yale in the fall.

"Yale? That's a pretty impressive school," the bartender said as he wiped down the counter in anticipation for Dean to take a seat. "What brings you to Green River? Where are you two headed?"

"Dunno ye'. Thinkin' California if we get the chance," the blonde answered with a grin. "Migh' even stop into Los'ngeles and 'ave a looksee aroun'."

"Los Angeles? Big place," Dean said, sitting down beside her. At the expectant look the bartender gave, Dean nodded toward him. "Corona." As the man disappeared to retrieve his beer, Dean smiled toward the Australian, who seemed surprised to see him and immediately looked down at the glass in front of her.

"G'day, mate," she muttered before taking a sip of the Coke she was drinking, the words coming out sounding like "Good eye, mate."

"So, where are you from?" Dean asked as the gray-haired man brought back his drink and set it down on a napkin near his hand. "No, wait… let me guess: Sydney."

"Is tha' the only Australian city y'know?" the girl smirked, turning her attention to him and pushing a tuft of blonde hair behind her ear. Large, sage-green eyes stared back at him behind wire-framed glasses, the black of the wire matching the thick eyeliner she was wearing. At the pause in conversation, Dean took the opportunity to look her up and down. She was thin with shapely legs and a really nice bust, the brown tanktop she was wearing accentuating her breasts even more. Her hair fell to her shoulders, curling under at the ends and framing her oval face, while a small silver cross hung loosely from her neck. Something about that piece of jewelry seemed familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on what. Focusing on it, Dean saw that it was a simple silver crucifix with inlaid diamonds. Nothing special or abnormal stuck out to him about the pendant.

Seeming to notice what he was doing, the girl wrapped her arms around her chest and crossed her legs protectively. Clearing his throat, Dean nodded and answered her question in an attempt to ease the tension that had accumulated from his staring. "Yeah, I don't know many cities in Australia. By the way, I'm Dean."

"Brenda," she nodded, uncurling herself slowly. "An' I'm from Melbourne."

"Melbourne? I've… never heard of it," Dean admitted with a grimace. "And you're on a road trip with your dad? You sure picked a weird day to roll into town."

"Yeah? Why's tha'?"

Taking a sip of beer, Dean swallowed hard. "Nothing, never mind."

"Oll-righ'," Brenda smiled, straight pearly whites as opposed to Jim Costa's yellowed grin. "Anyway, tha's 'im over there. See ya, mate."

Sliding out of her seat, Brenda headed toward a dark corner of the room and disappeared. Turning back around, Dean looked down at the beer in his hand, silently wondering if he had come on too strong for someone not from the States. Shrugging it off, he searched the counter for the bartender and found him talking to a squat, plump man at the corner of the bar, a look of impatience on his face.

"Jerry, I didn't call you here to talk about Michael," the bartender whispered harshly, though not quiet enough to keep anyone from eavesdropping over the clatter of billiards behind them. "I told you I don't believe that bullshit he's peddling and that's that. If you want to find someone to sell it to, go talk to Susan. I'm sure she'll listen to you. She hasn't shut up about it since her husband came to you last night."

"I was only doing my _job_, Fenton. I hadn't sent in a freelance piece to the _Democrat_ in a month and I was in a pinch. I didn't think people would eat it up. Now, c'mon," Jerry said, leaning forward on the bar, "just give me a quote and then we can talk about what you wanted me here for."

"Alright. Here's a quote for you: no comment. Happy?" Fenton snapped, throwing the white towel he had been using to whip off the bar over his shoulder. "Now can we talk about the gambling bets you owe me or should I take it up with _someone else_?"

"Okay, okay. Geez. Do you hassle all your customers like this?"

"I save it just for you."

Dean watched while Jerry pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and placed a pair of crisp hundreds in Fenton's hand. After the bartender held the bills up to the light to check for counterfeits, he nodded at the shorter man before letting him turn to leave. Clearing his throat, Dean waited a few moments before slipping off of his stool and heading toward Fenton, who now had the look of contempt plastered on his face.

"So, you don't believe that Michael Kissling crap, either?" Dean asked, leaning against the bar in front of the man as he pawed at the towel hanging over his shoulder. "Can't say that I blame you."

"You don't?" Fenton smirked. "You're about the only one in town that doesn't, and that's only because you're an outsider."

"What d'you mean?"

"Michael Kissling, family man, right? I've known him my whole life and he's never pulled a stunt like this, _ever_, yet I get the feeling something's up."

"What d'you mean?" Dean asked again.

Glancing around conspiratorially, Fenton cleared his throat as he leaned toward Dean. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but seeing as you're the only one here that believes me…" He cleared his throat again and sighed. "See, usually we have these get-togethers on Tuesday night, right? He shows up every night, almost _always_ early, and doesn't leave until everyone's gone. But last night? Man pulls a story out of his ass so huge that I wouldn't believe it no matter who told it to me. Mother Teresa could have told me she was hit by her own car helping a bunny cross the road and I wouldn't buy it. We see jackrabbits around here maybe once a year, and on that once a year, Michael happens to get run over by his own car? On top of that, he goes straight to Jerry Rhodes instead of heading to the hospital? Something isn't right about that, man. I'm telling you right now."

_Well, at least someone in this town has their head screwed on straight_, Dean smirked to himself as he downed the last of his beer and placed the empty bottle on the bar. Within a second, Fenton had replaced it. "On the house."

"Thanks," Dean nodded. "So what do you think your buddy's trying to pull, anyway? Some kind of fifteen-minutes-of-fame thing?"

At this, the bartender frowned and sighed. "Honestly, if you had asked me that last night, I would have laughed right in your face. Michael _was _the conservative type. He never cared about fame or fortune. Hell, he managed the Post Office for damn near fifteen years, and he's been working there since high school. Not a glamorous job, but he always seemed to love it. It paid the bills and that's all he needed. This, though, seems completely out of character. Almost like something possessed him."

Now it was Dean's turn to frown. Scratching the back of his neck, he let out a fake chuckle and bit his lip. "Yeah, possessed."

"Anyway, I have to get back. Stick around, play some pool, maybe catch up to that Australian girl before she leaves," Fenton winked, then turned on heel and headed toward an elderly couple who had just walked in. Dean watched as the bartender helped the pair to a booth not far from the entrance and asked them what they were having. The woman shook her head while the man ordered a ginger ale. "Coming right up, Mr. Cooper."

As the girl to Dean's right slid off her stool and left with a man emerging from the pool pit, Dean pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open to find Sam's number. Dialing it, he listened to it ring before the inevitable, "What?"

"Geez. This a bad time?" Dean asked, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry."

"Yeah, well… you should be," Dean teased, hoping it would lighten Sammy's mood. At the sound of his brother's smirk on the other end of the line, Dean grinned. "Anyway, so I talked to the bartender here. Apparently he's close friends with this Kissling guy. Dude says he doesn't believe a word coming out of the guy's mouth and thinks something's up. He said the he's acting, and I quote, 'like something possessed him'."

"Like a demon?" Sam sighed. "That wouldn't make any sense. Why would a demon be peddling the story that they ran themselves over? They're not the type to draw attention to themselves unless they need to."

"I don't know. I'm just saying, if the guy's best friend says he's acting weird: he's acting weird. Even you said that when we left their house," Dean said, pausing a minute to watch the blonde Australian, Brenda, slip out through a back door and furrowed his brow.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Anyway, I think I'm going to get out of here and scope out the guy's house for awhile. Y'know, see what's what. Unless you want to come with."

Sam stopped for a minute, the sound of his fingernails drumming against the base of the computer sounding even over the cracking of pool balls. "No. I think I'll keep at it. Something about this is bugging me and I won't be able to sleep until I figure it out."

"That's funny, coming from you, considering you don't sleep _period_," Dean frowned.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

"I'm serious, Sammy. Get some sleep tonight, alright?"

"I'll try."

_That's a lie, but I'll take what I can get_, Dean grimaced. "Okay. See you later." Without waiting for his brother's farewell, Dean snapped shut the phone and shoved it back in his pocket. Focusing back on his beer, Dean saw that it was still full and took a huge swig.

Sam's sleeplessness bothered him more than he lead on. He understood the visions and the nightmares about Jessica, but Dean sometimes had a feeling Sam was using those things as excuses when it came to the real problem: Sam didn't want to be hunting. As much as it pained Dean to think about it, he could tell that his little brother had the distant "I'd rather be anywhere but here" stare whenever he was in the passenger's seat of the Impala. Back in Chicago, Sam had even admitted as much, though he wasn't aware of it, when he claimed that as soon as they were done hunting the demon Dad was after, he was going to return to Stanford. The words had stung more than Dean had anticipated, but he had bitten it back for as long as he could before eventually snapping.

Still, Sam's statement haunted him: "_I'm not going to live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you're going to have to let me go my own way._" His brother's words, though he doubted Sam knew this, were the reasons behind him accepting the hunt in Louisville, Kentucky and now in Green River, Arkansas. If he could appease Sam long enough to change his mind, maybe they could go back to the way things were before he left for college. It was a long shot, but Dean didn't want to risk losing his brother again. The few years that Sam was away in California were some of the worst years of his life. As soon as Sam was gone, Dad had become distant as well, eventually going his own way and leaving Dean to hunt alone. Though being by himself never really bothered him before, mainly because he always knew Dad was taking care of Sammy while Dean was away, a swell of dread had overcome him during every close call he encountered while hunting solo. _What if Dad was hurt? What if Dad was dead? What if something happened to Sammy? Who's going to take care of them if something happens to me?_

Draining the last of his beer, Dean slammed the bottle down on the countertop before sliding off his stool and heading toward the door.


	5. Chapter Four

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

FOUR

First Bank of Bradford  
>Bradford, Arkansas<br>Wednesday, June 21, 2006  
>10:05 PM<p>

**T**he thing that now called itself Michael Kissling stared into his reflection in the rearview mirror of Susan Kissling's black CRV. It had taken the man's wife, life, and name and was planning to ruin it accordingly. The first step of this plan, the one he had been working on since leaving Anchorage and since earning the man a little publicity, was standing before him in the form of the brick edifice of the First Bank of Bradford.

The interior of the floor-to-ceiling windowed building was dark, with the blink of a red light in the corner telling him the security cameras would be watching his every move as soon as he entered through the back door as sloppily as possible. When the alarms were tripped, he would barrel out of there and speed away, hopefully with as much cash as he could pocket, and head to the nearest strip club.

Creatures like him hated people like Michael: clean-slate humanitarians who only cared about the good of the people around them. If it weren't for that news story on KTUU, he wouldn't have even thought of picking a small town for his next destination of destruction. Usually, he stuck to big cities like Anchorage or Philadelphia, places where the population swelled and the citizens wouldn't notice a few missing bodies, but he decided now was the time for a little risk—and, man, was it a good decision. When those reporters showed up in his living room, he thought he was done for. He had definitely smelled something about them that was different, the taller one especially, but he guessed he had fooled them well enough into leaving. As soon as they were gone, he had made sure to pat himself on the back before taking Susan up to the bedroom for a little _reward_.

And he would do it again as soon as he soiled Michael's name a little bit more.

Getting out of the car, he headed toward the back of the bank and kicked open the door. A rapid red flash under a desk told him that the silent alarm was now sending a signal to the authorities, so he had seven minutes to make an entrance, steal some money, and speed away to the nearest hideout.

Heading behind the teller's stand, he reached for a locked drawer beneath the marble countertop and pulled until it broke free. As it rolled out, the thing calling itself Michael smiled and pocketed the cash inside, then repeated the action four more times. When his pockets were stuffed and sirens were in the distance, he glanced up at the security cameras and laughed before turning to leave.

Flashes of red and blue were about a mile down the road as "Michael" climbed behind the wheel and tore out of the parking lot. Turning once to the left, then to the right, he stopped in an alley between a small bookstore and a coffee shop and killed the engine. The sirens had stopped now, probably all clustered around the front of the bank, and he sat waiting for the commotion to die down before backing slowly out of the alley and heading in the opposite direction toward Sensations strip club in Jacksonville. It was about an hour drive, but it would be worth it by the time he got there. With a pocket full of over a thousand dollars, he would make sure to spread his wealth wisely…

* * *

><p>The brick front of Sensations was illuminated with bright neon lights flashing the words "Girls" multiple times in a line down the building. The entrance door was swung open with a few men crowding the threshold sucking on cigarettes, the loud music from inside blasting into the parking lot.<p>

Pulling into a stall, he jumped out and headed for the door, slipping the bouncer a crisp twenty as he walked by. The inside of the building was dimly lit with a soft red overhead light, the only other illumination coming from the lined stage where two beautiful women were gyrating against poles, one even hanging upside down to let the guys below get a good look at her—

"Hey, big boy," a girl whispered in his ear, taking his arm. "You new around here?"

Turning to face her, "Michael" saw that the voice belonged to a short brunette dressed in nothing but a corset, a thong, and a pair of platform shoes. As the music pumped in his ears, so did his blood, causing him to lose concentration for a minute. Shaking her off, he headed straight to the bar toward the back and kneeled on top of the stool to get a height advantage over the rest of the crowd. "Drinks are on me tonight, boys!"

His proclamation earned him a hearty cheer and "Michael" wasted no time between his words and his actions as he whipped out a wad of hundreds and slapped them into the bartender's hand. Adjusting himself in the seat and turning his back to the crowd, he watched as the man behind the counter—the tall, bouncer type—began pouring drinks for everyone sitting around him. When he finally stopped at "Michael", he grinned widely, displaying an impressive set of three teeth on top and two on the bottom. "I reckon you're new to this town. What'll you have?"

"Whatever you'll give me, and keep it coming."

The man nodded before turning around and grabbing a bottle of Jack Daniels off the top shelf and pouring it into a shot glass on a napkin. "Michael" promptly downed the shot and nodded for another. "You might want to slow down there, son."

"Michael" laughed and slapped a twenty on the counter. "Not tonight, big boy. Down the hatch. C'mon. I plan on getting plastered before midnight."

"You don't have much time," the bartender chuckled, glancing at the cheap watch on his fat wrist. "Only a few minutes now."

"How much for the bottle?"

"Son, I can't in good conscience give you this. I have a feelin' you're up to no good."

_You don't even know the half of it_, "Michael" grinned, reaching into his pocket for another wad of bills. Counting out five hundreds, he placed them on the bar and slid them toward the man.

"Are you sure now?"

"I'm sure," "Michael" smirked. "Damn sure."

Taking the heap of cash and pocketing it, the bartender left Jack beside his customer's hand and walked away, as if his leaving meant that he was no longer a part of whatever the stranger was planning on doing. Screwing off the spout attached to the top, "Michael" tossed it aside and raised the bottle to his lips.

The whiskey went down hot and satisfying.

Taking two deep pulls from the three-quarter full bottle until the liquid was below the label, "Michael" began to feel the effects of the liquor. His cheeks felt warm and his lips tingled while the rest of him began to calm.

_This is a _great _night! _he wanted to shout, but didn't. Though his aim was to draw as much attention to himself as possible, he didn't want to do so when he was only tipsy. Getting kicked out of the bar after being inside for twenty minutes and still having half a bottle of booze to chug down wasn't his goal. Getting plastered, a lap dance, and maybe even a girl to take home to Susan—just to see the look on her face—was on his agenda for the night. Any kind of buzz-kill would be unacceptable.

"Hey," a quiet voice said behind him. Turning around, Michael could see that the short brunette was back, this time with a redhead friend. "You look a little lonely here by yourself. Why don't you take Jack over to our VIP lounge, and we'll show you both a good time… _if _you know what I mean."

"Can't argue with that," "Michael" smirked, sliding off of his stool and following the two girls to an area partitioned off with a beaded curtain. As he passed the screen, he could see that it lead to a hallway with doors open on both sides. The girls lead past two open thresholds—both containing a man and a gyrating, half-naked woman—then stopped beside an archway with a large number three over it.

"Well?" the brunette asked, flattening her back to the door and biting her lip. "Which one of us do you want? Or do you want both like the naughty boy that you are?"

"Michael" put on a show of glancing the two women up and down before eventually pointing to the brunette. "Sorry, Red, but you're just not my type."

Looking somewhat hurt by his statement, the redhead turned and left while the brunette grinned playfully and pulled her playmate into the room by the lapels of his blazer. "Michael", in measured steps, let her tug at him as he kicked the door closed. At the surprised look on her face as it snapped shut, "Michael" frowned and put on a shamed face. "Sorry. It's just… habit."

"No worries," the brunette laughed.

_You should be worried_, "Michael" grinned. _I've got a new idea for you_.

As she lowered him onto the chez-lounge near the middle of the room, "Michael" stared deeply into her eyes. Brown met blue for a long moment and he waited for the swell of personal information to flow from the connection. After a minute, he was satisfied and let her continue to thrust herself against him before making his move.

"Tiffani Stone," "Michael" said suddenly, stopping the girl cold. "Nineteen years old, originally from Newark, New Jersey. Came here for college but found this to be a more… _lucrative _career. I must say, wise choice."

The girl stared at him as she placed her platformed feet flat on the floor and backed up. "What're you? A cop?"

"Something like that."

Getting up from the couch, "Michael" pushed Tiffani to the ground and grabbed a stray chair. Shoving the back underneath the doorknob, he then pulled to make sure it was secure before turning back to his new victim.

Tiffani stared at him with wide, horror-filled eyes and "Michael" took a minute to drink in the deliciousness of it. This wasn't what he had in mind. It was so much _better_.

Picking up a floor lamp, "Michael" pulled it free from its wall socket and turned the shaft over with two hands like a baton before letting it land with the base pointing toward Tiffani. As if understanding his next move, the girl screamed, her voice piercing through the dull base encompassing the building, and ducked behind the chez.

"Michael" grinned. Murder in the first would be the perfect stain to add to the real Michael Kissling's perfect record. Though he hated to lose the man's skin and all-too loving wife, he was certain taking over Tiffani's form would earn him some love on a whole new level. She wasn't exactly squeaky clean like Post Office Man—_what stripper was?—_but it would be a good enough temporary home until he tracked down his next skin, and he already knew who that was going to be.

Throwing the couch aside, "Michael" pulled the girl to her feet and dragged her kicking and screaming into a wall. Tiffani was breathing hard now, her plastic chest rising and falling in rapid succession, and "Michael" took a moment to stare, wanting to get every curve right. When he was done, he drew back the lamp post before shoving it clean through her face. The heavy breathing stopped almost immediately, and both lamp and stripper fell to the floor.

Grabbing her legs, "Michael" did as he did with the original Michael Kissling and stashed the body in an obvious place. With Michael, it had been the side of the road behind a thick bush; with Tiffani, it was going to have to be the closet.

After unceremoniously tossing her corpse into the empty cupboard and turning the lock until he heard the satisfying click, Michael kicked the chez-lounge against the wall to hide the prominent bloodstain and turned toward the mirror. His transformation had already begun while he was working to cover up the mess, with Tiffani's blue eyes staring back at him instead of the hooded brown of the dead man. His body popped and cracked as the rest of his appearance shifted—his chest swelling, his torso shrinking, and his extremities becoming feminine.

By the time he was done, he shook the long brown hair out of his eyes and looked at the double of Tiffani Stone in the mirror. Michael's former clothes now hung off her small frame and the creature ripped the overshirt off—as a clue to the cops, if nothing else—so that the now-girl was wearing nothing more than slacks and a white v-neck that was nearly see-through.

_I'm gonna need new clothes_.

Shrugging once, "Tiffani" removed the chair from the door before taking the keys to the CRV from her loose pants and heading toward the main entrance.


	6. Chapter Five

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

FIVE

Main Street Motel  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Thursday, June 22, 2006  
>6:02 AM<p>

"_**I**__n our top stories this morning, Michael Kissling, the man who claimed to have been run over by his own car, is making headlines again, this time in a much different way. Good morning everyone, I'm Janice Richardson for KTGR._" Sitting up straighter, Sam reached for the dial on the television and leaned closer toward the screen. "_Michael Kissling, Green River's most trivial subject, has a warrant out for his arrest this morning after video surveillance taken at the First Bank of Bradford captured the man breaking into the building and robbing it._ _Only on KTGR will you see this exclusive video_."

As the news report paused, the door to the bathroom swung open to reveal Dean with a toothbrush in his mouth, wearing nothing but boxers. As the black-and-white clip of Michael heading into the bank and ripping open a few cash drawers played on the small television, Dean continued brushing his teeth while staring fixedly at the set. In the last few moments of video, the man started straight at the camera before it went blank. "Huh."

_"In additional news, the man was reportedly seen at Sensations strip club in Jacksonville before midnight. This morning, authorities confirmed that a girl who worked there, a Miss Tiffani Stone, was found dead, locked in a closet, after a co-worker saw the two heading toward a private area of the club. Police firmly believe the two crimes were committed by the same man, though a conflicting report claims they saw the girl leave the club and drive home not long after a private meeting with Kissling, but that has not yet been confirmed."_

_ "_Told you we had a fricken shapeshifter, man!" Dean blurted out after spitting a gob of foam into the sink and turning on the tap to wash out his mouth. "We could've stopped that thing dead in its tracks yesterday, too! We were so close."

"I don't think it's a shapeshifter, Dean," Sam muttered, rolling his eyes at Dean's inattentiveness. "Remember that shifter in St. Louis and the retinal flare? This guy looked straight at the camera and nothing happened."

"Well, he definitely ain't human."

"I'll agree with you on that."

Sighing, Sam watched his brother disappear back into the bathroom before lowering the volume on the TV and lying down on the bed. Last night, he had been doing all he could to figure out what was going on with Michael Kissling, searching everything from arrest records to history on the car he had purchased. When both of those came up clean, he had tried looking for a spell or a curse that could have been placed on the Civic to make it act on its own. Unfortunately, that had _also _come up clean.

At close to three, when Dean had come back from his stakeout outside of the Kissling residence, Sam had finally called it a night. As his brother filled him in on the uneventful watch of the couple's house—saying that the car in the driveway was gone before he got there and that the inside was dark—Sam hadn't thought much of it and instead stayed up a little after Dean had fallen asleep before doing the same himself.

What he hadn't expected that morning was the story on the news. After waking up at half past five and making enough coffee for him and Dean, something had told him to turn on the television. As soon as he had sat down, the story on the screen told them of what Dean had narrowly missed the night before. Sam knew his brother had only returned to the bathroom to wallow in silent frustration.

Getting up to his feet, Sam headed toward his laptop and opened the lid, waiting for it to spring to life. When it did, he Google searched the surveillance video and watched it twice more before Dean emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed with a look of determination on his face. "You just gonna sit around, Sammy, or are we actually going to work today?"

Shutting the computer, Sam rested his elbow on top and raised an eyebrow at his brother. He understood that Dean took failure personally, especially when it came to a case, but didn't understand why he was so intent on taking it out on his younger brother. "What's your problem?"

"Nothing, never mind," Dean sighed, gritting his teeth and rolling his head back as he took a seat on the bed Sam had just abandoned.

Deciding to ignore it, Sam crossed the room and headed toward the bathroom, grabbing his clothes off the top of the sink. "Look, give me a minute to get dressed and we can go, alright? We'll figure out what's doing this before anyone else gets hurt."

* * *

><p>Dean didn't believe Sam's mantra of "We'll figure this out", even after an hour of hearing it. Deciding the first place to check out would be Susan Kissling's house, the two drove the twenty miles out of town to get there, only to discover that the house was swarmed with police cars and other official-looking vehicles.<p>

"There's no way we're getting in there," Dean had said, nodding toward the FBI agent walking through the front door. "Unless you want to try the Homeland Security badges again, but even last time was a close call."

"No," Sam sighed then, biting his lip in thought. "Let's try the police station. Maybe there won't be many people inside. We just need to change first."

"Man, I'm not putting a fricken suit on for this."

"_Yes_, you are."

Thankfully, the police station wasn't far from their motel, so changing and heading over hadn't been that much of a deterrent. Unfortunately, when they walked through the front doors, they found that the building was empty.

"Well this is never a good sign," Dean commented.

Their dress shoes tapped against the linoleum floor as Sam and Dean looked around, hoping to find someone inside. After a few moments of looking around, a blonde head appeared behind the desk, preceding a tan police uniform clothing a firm, supple body. As the female officer stood with her arms crossed over her somewhat voluptuous chest, Dean caught himself staring and cleared his throat. "You work here?"

"No. I'm getting ready for Halloween," the officer snapped in a raspy voice that sounded like she had been screaming herself hoarse. "Can I help you with something or are you just here to hang out?"

Something about this woman seemed familiar to him, but Dean couldn't figure out what it was. Scanning her features for a minute, Dean took in the oval face, brown eyes, and short blonde hair before pushing the feeling away. "Actually," he paused to flash the FBI badge he had retrieved from his coat pocket. "We're here for some information."

"I gave your buddies all the information they need," the officer said, taking a pencil out from behind her ear and jotting down a note in a planner before her. "So unless you guys are all experiencing extreme memory loss, maybe you should ask one of them."

"We would," Sam lied, stepping forward to relieve Dean of having to think up an excuse, "but they're from a separate office. See, our AD is having a bit of a bitchfit over the Little Rock office becoming sloppy, so he sent us out from Chicago to handle it. After asking around, it seems like the other team's preparing to close up shop while we're still working. So any and all information that you've given them is just going to go to waste."

Taking a moment to consider his words, the blonde tapped the eraser of her pencil against her full lips before grinning. "Alright. Whatever. It's not like I have anything else to do. What do you need to know? And make it quick before everyone else comes back. We're not a big precinct, but the other guys that work here are pretty much the biggest assholes on this side of the equator and try to make up in size by kicking other people around."

"We'll be quick," Dean smirked and stepped forward to lean against the desk the officer was standing behind to get a good look at her nametag. "So, Cooper, huh? Any relation to Alice?" Officer Cooper cleared her throat and shot him a glare. "Alright, alright. What can you tell me about the body of the dead girl found at the strip club?"

Reaching over to retrieve a file from under a pile of papers, Cooper flipped it open and scanned the page inside. "Died of blunt trauma to the face. Witnesses claim she went into a room with Michael Kissling and they heard sounds of struggling. Of course, it was inside of a strip club, so the moans could have been anything." Stopping to flip through the documents inside, the officer sighed. "Other reports say she was seen leaving the club in a black Honda CRV. Surveillance shots and a registry run point out that the vehicle belongs to Susan Kissling, though she has no memory of loaning the car to the woman. A cell phone check shows that the two never had contact before, so I'm inclined to believe her."

"There's no video of the girl getting into the car?" Sam frowned.

"The cameras there only take a series of pictures once every minute. We have the car heading into the lot, parking, Michael Kissling heading in, then the car leaving. No driver is indicated."

"What about traffic cameras?" Dean asked.

"Towns as small as Jacksonville or Green River don't have those things, boys. In fact, the Internet here still runs on dial-up in most places. Only the motel and the bar have high-speed, and that's only because both owners have the money to pay for satellite service," Officer Cooper shut the folder and placed it in front of Dean. "We don't have much homicide, either. I'm pretty sure the last death this precinct ever investigated was a self-inflicted gunshot wound that happened while Calvin Williams was cleaning his rifle." Tapping the file, she eyed Dean and Sam for a minute before shoving it toward them. "Take this, read it, and if you find anything helpful, there's a copy machine in the corner. If you don't find what you're looking for, just give it back."

Nodding, Dean accepted the folder and turned to look at Sam, who also nodded in thanks. As the two turned around, Officer Cooper grabbed the mug of coffee that had been sitting near her hand while she was talking and headed into a separate office.


	7. Chapter Six

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

SIX

Kissling Residence  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Thursday, June 22, 2006  
>10:12 AM<p>

**A**fter a search through the Michael Kissling case file proved useless, with nothing in there except for the name of the stripper he killed and her address, Sam had copied over half of the documents inside for future use before following his brother out the door of the precinct.

Dean had been acting irritable and tired for the last hour of their search, and had been flipping the keys to the Impala in his hand over and over, suggesting they go back to talk to Susan Kissling instead of reading up on things they already knew. Sam had a feeling that was the sleeplessness talking—his brother had driven eight hours straight and only gotten a few winks during the night—and had taken the keys from him before sliding into the driver's side. Having almost never driven the Impala before they started hunting together again, unless you count the few times where Dean taught him how to drive, Sam took every opportunity he could to get behind the wheel. Though he didn't have a connection with the car like Dean did, and his brother seemed to have a little _too much _of a connection with it, Sam still enjoyed the rumble of the engine every time the Impala started up. The sound was comforting to him, reminding him of all the times he got to sit in the back seat when he was younger and actively ignore whatever was irritating Dad about a hunt.

But now the rumble idled as they sat still in front of the Kissling residence. The cop cars were gone, as were all traces that they had been there. Susan sat in the tire swing in the middle of the lawn, the seat swaying listlessly as her feet kicked absently at the ground. Even the roar of the Impala didn't seem to startle her as she looked up at locked tired eyes with Dean in the passenger's seat from across the yard.

"Geez. Someone's upset," Dean commented before popping open the door.

Sam rolled his eyes and did the same before rounding the front and heading up the twisted walkway behind his brother. As the two approached, Susan gave them a small smile and cleared her throat. "Should've known you two would come back."

"We're sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Kissling," Sam began. "We would just like to—"

"Know why Michael did it?" Susan frowned. "Yeah, so would I. Then again, it's not exactly a surprise."

"Why's that?" Dean asked, furrowing his brow.

"If you had met my husband any day before yesterday, you would have seen a kind, gentle man who believed in spending time with his family and friends. But the night he was hit by the car, something in him… _changed_. He came home, didn't say a word, and went straight to sleep. The next morning, he blew off work and insisted we stay in bed all day. My husband, in the ten years we've been married, has never in his life skipped work. Ever. And on top of it all, I had to find out what happened from the morning paper."

"You didn't call him on it?" Dean asked, leaning against the tree and pulling out the notebook he had stored in the lining of his jacket. "You didn't ask him if he was alright?"

"It didn't occur to me. Honestly, I thought this whole new lease-on-life thing was just part of the accident, like maybe it sparked some _carpe diem _thing that might've attributed to it. It was kind of fun at first, but I never thought he would take it this far," Susan sighed. "And now he's wanted for murder? It's like he's been possessed."

_You're the second person to say that_, Sam thought, biting his lip.

"Susan," Dean said, clearing his throat, "have you ever seen anything about your husband that was… abnormal? Like, his eyes turning black, or red, maybe?" Sam knew the question had stemmed straight from the mention of possession, but he had a feeling that wasn't what was going on. With the finding of the hair and the smashed trunk of the car, there had to be something else at work here, something he had a feeling was humanoid.

"No," Susan frowned, snapping Sam out of his thoughts, staring down at the ground. "Is that part of the accident?"

"Might be," Sam lied.

"Anything else that you might've seen?" Dean pressed, rubbing the back of his neck with the hand holding a pencil. "Dogs acting strange around him? Anything?"

"Well, there is one thing, but I doubt it makes any difference," Susan sighed. "It's just… it's my kids. They're twins, so they have a tendency to react the same way toward everything." She paused for a moment to look between Dean and Sam. "Since my husband got back that night, they've been shying away from him. They came into the bedroom to ask their dad about the camping trip they were supposed to go on this weekend and automatically retreated back to their room. It wasn't like we were doing anything, we had clothes on and Michael was near the dresser, so it's not like we disturbed them somehow. They just took one look at him and backed up."

Sam frowned. "Did you ask them why?"

"I tried to. They both just clammed up."

Turning to Sam, Dean gave his brother the nod that usually meant he knew what was going on before shoving the notebook back into his pocket and pushing himself off the trunk. "Thank you for your time."

Nodding to her, Sam followed his brother as Dean hurried down the walkway. By the time they were back inside the Impala—this time with Dean driving—and tearing off down the road, his brother had a knowing smile on his face, causing Sam to wonder how Dean could have come to the conclusion before him.

"What is it?"

"Doppelgängers."

"Excuse me?"

"Dude, you've heard of them before. Basically a bad combination of shapeshifters and skinwalkers that can become anyone as long as they touch whoever they intent to turn into?" Dean sighed. "It explains why the dude didn't have a retinal flare or whatever."

"Also explains the kids," Sam sighed, leaning further back into the passenger's seat and catching up to his brother's train of thought. Dean was right. Doppelgängers _could_ become anyone it wanted as long as the creature touched its intended victim. According to German legend, the things were once-people who had been cursed into taking another's form. From what Sam knew, most doppelgängers were creatures intent on tearing down "do-gooders" by stepping into their lives and wreaking havoc. Based on what Dean had told him about the bartender's description of his buddy, Michael, that was exactly what was going on here. "Okay, so we have a doppelgänger. Any clues on how to kill it? Or maybe how to find it? That thing can be anybody by now."

"No, but that's what I have you for," Dean frowned, pressing the pedal further to the ground to speed up the car. The Impala buckled for a moment before barreling down the road. As they got closer to town, Sam watched the people entering and exiting the buildings and wondered if any of them could be the creature they were looking for.

The doppelgänger could be anywhere or anything, but it was most likely the person it had last killed. Unfortunately, the file at the police station hadn't included a picture of Tiffani Stone alive, so neither brother knew what she looked like. All they had to go on was the fact that the creature was driving Susan Kissling's CRV around town—and that was if the thing had decided to stay in Green River and keep the vehicle instead of dumping both the appearance and the car.

Pulling into the motel's parking lot, Dean killed the engine in a spot just outside of their room and got to his feet, his eyes focused on something in the open doorway. "Sam!"

Jumping out, Sam hurried over to his brother and peered into their shadowed "suite". Their room was trashed, with the beds overturned, television on the ground, and clothes scattered across the floor. It was clear that nothing had been left untouched as everything was in complete disorder.

Sighing, Dean headed inside while Sam turned back to the car for his laptop, secretly thanking himself for sticking it under his seat before leaving that morning. When he was back inside, he shut the door and turned on the overhead lights. The bright illumination made the mess look worse than before.

"Can you tell if anything's missing?" Sam asked, hitching his bag closer toward his collar bone.

"Doesn't look like it," Dean said, pushing a box-spring back onto a bed frame. "Then again, how're we supposed to know what it took? Everything's all over the place." Sliding the mattress on top, Dean stopped for a minute, frowning. "Think it knows we're onto it?"

"Probably," Sam sighed. "Probably knew from the minute we got here."

"Then what's the point of this?"

Shrugging, Sam placed his computer bag on the fixed bed before helping his brother right the other one. "No idea, but I think we need to find this thing fast. It might've come here to kill us but got mad when it saw we weren't here."

"Great," Dean groaned. "Just great."

"Tell me about it," Sam agreed, flipping the table by the window back onto its legs. "Look, you put the room back together and I'll try to find a weakness for this thing, and maybe a way to zero in on it. It might take awhile, though."

"So will this," Dean frowned.

"Yeah, well, at least you have something to do," Sam grinned, earning him a glower from his brother as he picked up the now-broken television.


	8. Chapter Seven

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

SEVEN

Main Street Motel  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Thursday, June 22, 2006  
>1:32 PM<p>

**D**ean was getting tired of sitting around while Sam scoured the Internet. He had already fixed the room the best he could and pretended to make the bed, but even after an hour of doing so, the task had worn off. Since noon, he had been doomed to staring at the ceiling until Sam had his eventual "a-ha!" moment, but that still hadn't come.

Sleep was crowding his brain as he lay back against the pillows he had lazily tossed toward the headboard. He hadn't had more than a couple of hours since leaving Kentucky, and the drive into Arkansas had worn him out. It wasn't unusual for a Winchester to be behind the wheel for hours on end between cases, but usually Dean had someone to switch off with. On the drive into Green River, he hadn't bothered to ask Sam whether he wanted a turn behind the wheel. His brother had been too focused on the newspaper clipping in his hand to think about anything else.

But now that he was waiting, he was struggling against his closing eyelids. Unfortunately, he knew as soon as he fell asleep, Sam would wake him up with whatever information they needed to hunt down the doppelgänger, and Dean would be too unaware to soak up the facts. Instead he stayed awake and waited for Sam's eventual rambling of intel.

"So," Sam said suddenly, jerking Dean out of his thoughts. Seeming to notice the quick motion, his brother smiled while Dean sat up. "It seems that doppelgängers aren't as uncommon as we thought. There have been reports of a few famous ones throughout history: John Donne, Percy Shelley—"

"Who?"

Sam scoffed and rolled his eyes. "They're poets, Dean. Percy Shelley wrote _Prometheus Unbound _in 1820 that contains a passage detailing his encounter with his own doppelgänger in Act I. His wife wrote _Frankenstein_."

"Oh, yeah. That guy," Dean nodded, though he knew both he and Sam were aware of the fact that he had no idea what his younger brother was talking about. "Anyway…"

"_Anyway_," Sam sighed. "Aside from those two, the most famous of all doppelgänger sightings is that of Abraham Lincoln's. Apparently the night he was elected president, he saw his own doppelgänger and told his wife about it. According to a biography written by Carl Sandburg, they interpreted that to mean he wouldn't live through his second term in office."

"Good guess," Dean smirked. "How come they weren't offed after running into one?"

"Not all of them seem to be murderous," Sam sighed. "While some are bent on the destruction of character, some, like Lincoln's, are 'intent to give warning of bad misfortune'. According to some skeptics, doppelgängers aren't evil at all, but just around to warn people of their untimely death."

Dean scoffed. "Yeah, which contradicts almost everything written in Dad's journal." Pausing, Dean removed the book from the folds of his tossed-aside jacket and searched for the entry on the doppelgänger Dad had encountered in 1987. "January fourth—doppelgänger spotted near outskirts of Minnesota, seems to be on spree of killing families via Trojan Horse method."

"Maybe it's the same thing," Sam frowned. "Y'know, it laid low for awhile before starting up again."

"Doubt it. Dad shot it."

"With what?"

Dean's eyes focused on the scribble near the bottom of the page before tossing the journal to his brother. "No idea."

Sighing, Sam took a look at the chicken scratch before shutting the book with an audible snap. "Great."

"Tell me about it," Dean agreed, then pushed himself into a standing position. "Look, you do your genius thing and find out what we can do to put a stop to this thing. I'll go get us some grub. I'm fricken starving. What d'you want?"

"Cobb salad."

"Seriously? Dude, I'm not buying you chick food."

"Whatever," Sam groaned. "Not all of us are on the fast track to a heart attack."

"I don't think either of us is going to live long enough to get one," Dean replied. "Whatever. I'll be back. Try to figure out what kills these things before I get back so we can hunt it down."

Waving him off, Sam turned back to his computer as Dean shrugged on his leather jacket and grabbed his keys.

* * *

><p>The inside of the diner near Highway 376 was deserted. The one girl working behind the counter popped her gum and played with her red hair while she glared at Dean from across the room, as if his entrance had disrupted her exciting day.<p>

Heading toward the counter, Dean pulled out his wallet and quickly ordered Sam's salad and a chili cheese burger, hoping his meal would balance out the girlishness of his brother's. As Red shouted over a stainless steel counter to someone named Willy, Dean took a seat in a nearby chair and turned toward the television on mute above the soda machine near the corner. The closed captioning was on, though slow, and detailing the strange murder case of Tiffani Stone, showing exterior shots of the outside of Sensations strip club while the black and white text scrolled across the bottom.

"_Police are still hearing conflicting reports about the woman; some claiming that she was seen walking out of the club not long after disappearing into a room with a customer, while others say that the body found in the closet was that of her corpse_," it said. "_With no facial recognition available, and with no next of kin replying to contact, the only verifiable information is the butterfly tattoo a shop owner, who has asked his name be concealed, claims was designed especially for Ms. Stone. Unfortunately, police will not take this as evidence and are still waiting for reply from Tiffani's family. We'll have more on this story on the news at six." _

"Food's done," the redhead whined, slamming a white paper bag with a blue logo stamped on it against the counter.

Shaking his head, Dean got out of his chair, his eyes still on the screen, and picked up the sack. As he was about to turn to go, someone else stuck out to him: "_This just in from the White County sheriff's station, the black 1998 Honda CRV the suspect was last seen driving has been sighted at a reservoir near Green River. Authorities say the driver was spotted at the Main Street Motel and Bridget's Books earlier today as well, but left shortly after.__ According to police, the car appears abandoned._"

"Great, just what we need," Dean muttered as he turned on heel to head out the front door. "The cops showing up at our motel."

Getting behind the wheel, Dean tossed the bag of food into the passenger's seat and took off in the direction he had just come. As soon as he was in the parking lot, he saw Sam in the doorway, his toes tapping impatiently against the ground. "Where were you?"

"Where do you think I was? I told you," Dean scowled as he popped open the door. Before he could get to his feet, however, Sam was in the passenger's side. "What the—"

"No time," Sam said quickly, flinging the sack into the backseat. "There was a report posted online a minute ago about another murder, this one near Grover Ridge about ten miles east of here. We gotta get there before the cops do."

Nodding, Dean shot a look at his brother before slamming the door shut again and backing out of the lot. When they were back on the rural road just outside of Main Street, Dean eyed Sam for a long minute, watching as his brother fiddled with the lock near his shoulder. By the time they had reached a stretch of highway with nothing on either side except for thick sets of woods, Sam finally shouted, "Stop!"

"There was a murder _here_?" Dean asked dubiously. "Was Jason Voorhees involved?"

Pulling off onto the shoulder and stopping the car, Dean glanced at Sam before popping open the door and getting to his feet. Leaning over the hood of the car, his eyes browsed the woods before stopping at the black CRV parked about a mile down the road.

"Son of a—"

But Dean didn't get to finish his sentence as Sam snuck up behind him and bashed him in the back of the head with the butt of a shotgun.

* * *

><p>Sam Winchester really hated being tied up. As he heard the calming rumble of the Impala nearing their motel room, Sam was hopeful he would be freed from his roped-down prison, but knew that wouldn't be the case. The doppelgänger had come into the room looking like him, almost exactly, and had taken Sam down in a matter of seconds. Though there weren't many things that could get the jump on him, he figured that creature could. In addition to being able to imitate people's appearances, doppelgängers were also much stronger than the average human, giving them an advantage over their prey.<p>

From his vantage point between the beds, Sam could see himself walking toward the door and standing at the threshold while Dean's car became visible in the lot. A moment later, the creature used his voice to tell his brother to head to a town not far from where they were staying, then shut the door and disappeared. As the Impala drove away, Sam hit his head against the nightstand in frustration before attempting to free himself from his tethers. Unfortunately, the doppelgänger had had the mind to toss all of his weapons, including the knife he kept in his sock, across the room and out of reach. He was going to have to find another way out of the binds.

As his eyes searched the room, Sam saw that Dean hadn't done much in the way of cleaning up when a thought suddenly struck him: the doppelgänger had pinned him as its next skin and had broken in to steal some of his clothes. Thinking back, Sam remembered shaking hands with "Michael Kissling" in his living room, inadvertently giving the creature the ability to duplicate him.

_But why am I still alive_? Sam wondered for a brief moment before he answered his own question. The doppelgänger had taken his form, but hadn't done what Dean would call "the Vulcan Mind Meld"—a thing both shapeshifters and doppelgängers could do. The difference between the two was that doppelgängers gathered their victim's memories through eye contact whereas shifters only needed their victim to be in the same room. The creature hadn't had time to perform its trick and was probably planning on doing so after doing away with Dean in Grover Ridge.

Panic struck Sam as he realized the urgency of the situation, and reaching his hands as far as he could under the bed, he attempted to use the wheel beneath the mattress to cut the ropes. Though he knew they were in no way sharp, and the motion was very uncomfortable, it was the best he had aside from a dulled-down edge of the nightstand and a toppled-over lamp.

_Why couldn't I be double-jointed instead of psychic_? Sam thought bitterly as he waited for the twine around his wrists to fray. At the sound of a tight _snap!, _his hands came free and he tossed the broken rope toward the bathroom side of the room. Reaching forward, he then untied his feet and stood up. Without hesitation, he headed straight for the door and yanked it open to see the parking lot empty.

_Now what?_


	9. Chapter Eight

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

EIGHT

Middle of Nowhere  
>Grover Ridge, Arkansas<br>Thursday, June 22, 2006  
>4:01 PM<p>

**D**ean stared up at the thing that looked like his brother, but wasn't. He had seen it in the car and when the thing was standing in the doorway to his and Sammy's motel room, the tiny indiscretions that the doppelgänger probably thought no one would notice. Unfortunately for it, the creature had never met Sam and Dean Winchester, nor knew that the two brothers knew almost everything about each other, from personality to facial features.

And this thing had gotten a few details wrong. The small mole that Sam had to the right of his left cheek was missing, as were the puppy-dog eyes and sloping nose. In their place was blank skin, and Dean's hard stare and broken bridge. In fact, "Sam" looked more like someone had morphed Dean's and his brother's features into one person.

"Should've known it was you," Dean groaned and fussed with the ropes tying him to a tree somewhere miles from the road. He didn't remember much aside from getting hit in the back of the head—the bump was still throbbing—and waking up with the doppelgänger watching him from a nearby branch. "You look nothing like Sam."

"You're right," the creature said, though it came out in his brother's voice. "I got a few details wrong, but it was passable enough to get you to come with me. You never looked at me long enough to know the difference."

"Where's Sam?"

"Where do you think he is?" it smiled.

Dean's eyes hardened. "If my brother's dead, I will kick your ass into next week and empty a clip into your brain, you hear me?"

The doppelgänger raised its hands in surrender before leaning against the tree and crossing them over its chest. "Whoa, now. No need to get so defensive. Your brother's alive. I needed him to be."

"Yeah? And why's that?"

"Because if one of us is going to be turned over to the cops, it ain't gonna be me."

"You are a sad son of a bitch, you know that?" Dean smirked, squirming beneath his binds to find a part of the trunk that could shred the rope. "You think Sam hasn't found a way outta there yet? You think he isn't on his way here _right now_ to kick your ass for taking his face? If you do—"

"I'm sadly mistaken?" the creature grinned. "Ah, c'mon, Dean! Don't you think we'd make a better pair than you and Sammy? I mean, we look more alike, don't we?"

"Yeah, but you're _not _Sam, and that's my whole problem with this situation," Dean growled, his hands finally coming free of the ropes and feeling blindly for the nickel-plated .45 he kept in his back waistband, only to realize that it was gone. "What'd you do with my gun, you dick?"

Reaching behind him, the doppelgänger removed the weapon from where Dean typically stored his and flipped it around using its finger and the trigger guard. Dean watched with bated breath, hoping that the creature wasn't dumb enough to let the gun hit the ground. If it did, there was no doubt in his mind that the weapon would fire and hit him square in the chest. Then both he _and _Sammy would be screwed.

Getting to his feet, Dean kept his eyes on the creature and his gun while pushing his back to the tree. If the gun did squeeze off a shot, he might have a chance to duck behind the apple tree he had been tied to, but that wouldn't cover him for long. The thing had Sam's lengthy, muscular legs, and would cover more ground than Dean could—his brother had always been able to run faster than him, anyway.

Just like he predicted, there was a loud bang of a gunshot, and Dean managed to round the tree just as splinters of wood frayed off near his shoulder. The crunch of dry leaves and ground told him that the doppelgänger had dropped from its perch in the branches and was headed his way—and if that was the case, he had no other cover to protect him from another bullet.

_I need to get to the Impala. Level the playing field_.

Glancing around, he saw a thicket of trees about ten yards to his right. Knowing that was his best bet for cover until he reached the road, he bolted.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Three shots fired, each of them whizzing past him at a rate that would have hit him had he been a second too slow. When he finally reached his shelter, Dean ducked low and ran as fast as he could with his chest half-way to the ground.

_Still have no idea how to kill the damn thing_, Dean reminded himself as he headed in the direction he thought the Impala was in. There were silver bullets in the trunk, along with a few hundred rock salt rounds, but he didn't know which of those, if any, would do any damage to a doppelgänger. Sam had been working on that before he left the motel room for food and hadn't called to tell him whether or not he had found anything that would work.

Suddenly, Dean's shoulder collided with a solid body. For a moment, he was certain he had run straight into the creature, but when he looked up, he saw a puppy-dog eyed Sam glaring at him with a furrowed brow. "Dean?"

"Dude! Next time wear a bell!" Dean whispered harshly, grabbing Sam's arm and tugging him below the thick foliage.

Sam peered through the leaves. "I'm guessing that thing still looks like me."

"Kind of like you. It's like a genetic mutation of both of us."

"Great."

"Yeah, so... how do we kill it?"

Reaching behind him in a way all too similar to how the doppelgänger had done it, Sam removed an aluminum-plated 9mm from his belt and pressed the warm metal into Dean's hands. "Cast-iron rounds."

"We had these in the trunk?" Dean frowned.

Sam shrugged. "I found them in your duffle bag."

"Whatever. You sure these'll work?"

Pulling out a second gun, this one from the inside pocket of his jacket, Sam placed his finger on the trigger and nodded. "Positive."

"Okay, let's move out."

* * *

><p>Sneaking through the back of the clearing where the doppelgänger was currently waiting with its arms crossed over its chest, gun in his right hand, and a look of annoyance on its face, Sam readied himself behind the thickest tree he could find and pushed his back to the trunk. Dean was on the other side, keeping low beneath a group of overgrown plants, and had told Sam he would stay out of the way if he wanted to take this one out solo—which he did. Anything wearing his face was personal.<p>

"I can hear you, kiddies!" Sam heard his own voice taunt. "Hiding isn't very brave."

Neither Sam nor Dean made a move. Instead, Sam stayed still, listening to the leaves crunch under the doppelgänger's feet as it walked toward him. A second later, the footsteps stopped about a yard from his hiding place before turning to head the other direction.

"Y'know, Sammy, I know how this may look: I've taken your face, your voice, your… identity. But you know something? It's all on you. If you weren't such the squeaky-clean college kid that you were, I wouldn't have even picked up on it. No arrest record, no traffic tickets… hell, you don't even have an overdue library book!" the creature teased. Sam took a minute to peer around the tree to see that it had taken a seat on a stump near the middle of the clearing. "Your brother, though, he's all over the place. Stolen credit cards, fake IDs, not even a real driver's license. He's the kinda man I like: troublesome, carefree, and a _hell_ of a conversationalist."

"You can stop kissing my ass now," Dean's voice came.

The doppelgänger laughed. "See what I mean?" There was a pause for a moment, a silence that fell over the woods, and Sam took a moment to uncomfortably adjust his position, accidentally cracking a twig that sounded like a gunshot in the stillness. "Do you know what I want, boys?" A sneer was audible in the creature's tone. "To be accepted, to be _loved_. We want the same thing every one of you humans want, but no one wants to love _us_."

"You're looking in all the wrong places, buddy," Dean commented.

"Maybe," the creature said, a crunch telling Sam that it was back on its feet. "But maybe not. I tried everywhere. I shacked up with a family in Alaska, but the kids wouldn't come near me. I really, _really _tried with them, I did. I wasn't even planning to ruin the guy I was imitating until his wife booted me out. After that, it was countdown to destruction time. I guess I just figured that if no one wants to love me, I have no choice but to take down the people _everyone _loves. Michael Kissling, the friend to every townsperson; Tiffani Stone, the club's best stripper; and… _you_. Sam Winchester. That little snippet of your life that I saw back at the Kisslings told me you were Mister Popular at Stanford. A Google search told me as much. Did you know your brother was in an academic decathlon in high school, Dean?"

"Yeah, well, he always was a nerd."

_Great_, Sam sighed, rolling his eyes. _Seems like Google trumps Vulcan Mind Meld._

"But you know what kind of love I hadn't tried yet?" the doppelgänger asked, ignoring Dean's comment. "I mean, it hadn't struck me until I met you two. I was _so _intent on killing you, but I was gonna do it just for fun—y'know, since you were poking around. But now… _now _I have purpose. I'll hand you over to the cops for the murder of Tiffani Stone, then while you rot in jail, me and Dean can go on that road trip you two are claiming to be taking." Sam shifted again as footsteps made their way toward him, this time attempting to remain as quiet as possible. A second later, however, his morphed-with-Dean's face appeared around the bend before a hand grabbed his shirt. "There you are!"

Tossing Sam into the clearing with strength twice that of a normal person's, the doppelgänger pushed Sam to the ground before lowering itself onto his stomach. "I need some information. This might tickle."

Without any type of warning, Dean's sage stare met Sam's emerald and his body began to feel numb. A series of images flashed in his mind: the fire, Dean killing a wendigo, the boat Mr. Carlton had driven onto the lake exploding in a tidal wave, the plane wreckage of flight 2485, smashing mirrors in the antique store, the shapeshifter imitating Dean, jumping in front of the hook man to save Lori, the bug infestation in Oklahoma, the moment the fiery spirit solidified into the form of his mother, Dr. Ellicott attacking Sam, talking to Meg at the bus station, his brother getting healed on stage at Roy Le Grange's house…

"Hey!" Dean said suddenly, breaking the connection between Sam and his double before a gunshot was squeezed off.

At inhuman speed, the creature leapt off Sam and headed into the woods, a maniacal laugh sounding in its wake. As Dean helped his brother to his feet, his eyes searched the grounds for any trace of the doppelgänger. "Let's get this son of a bitch.

* * *

><p>After an hour of searching, Dean and Sam met in the clearing empty handed and upset. Sam's eyes scanned the trees as he attempted to catch his breath while Dean bit his lip and sighed. "Think he's gone?"<p>

Sam shook his head. "The thing headed further into the woods, not toward the road. It has to be around here somewhere."

"Yeah, well, it's starting to get dark," Dean commented, eyeing the sky.

Sam glanced up and met his brother's gaze at the muted blue of sunset. If they didn't find the doppelgänger soon, the thing would have even more of an advantage over them. Sighing, he looked back at his brother. "We need to split up again. See if we can find this thing before it changes into you or something."

"Just what I'd need: another me," Dean scowled. "Alright. You find anything—"

"I'll holler," Sam finished for him, tightening his grip on the 9mm in his hand and heading deeper into the woods.

The further he walked from the clearing, the thicker the vegetation seemed to become. As he paced rigidly through the line of apple trees, his gun held at the ready, he was eerily reminded of the last time he had been in an orchard like this. He and Dean had been hunting a Pagan god who had been disguised as a scarecrow. On the last night of the required sacrifice, he and Dean and a girl named Emily had been chased by it out to the street. Fortunately for them, the god couldn't leave the orchard and they had been able to escape until sunrise. This time, however, there was nothing to keep the doppelgänger here and hoped that the thing hadn't found a way out of the forest in order to wreak havoc elsewhere while wearing his face.

Suddenly, strong hands pushed Sam to the ground and he found himself once again straddled by the creature.

"De—"

"Now, now," the thing chided, placing its hand over Sam's mouth. "No calling for big brother."

The two locked eyes a moment later and Sam could feel his body deadening while the doppelgänger sorted through Sam's memories: His and Jessica's first kiss, classes at Stanford, the year he had to share a dorm with his friend Brady, getting an apartment with Jessica, moving in…

"This is getting good!" the creature smiled.

…the first night in their new apartment, Jessica making dinner, more classes, the hours spent in the library, tests, counseling sessions, information on bar exams, the LSAT test, Halloween—

"No!" Sam shouted, breaking away from the doppelgänger and pushing it away.

The thing laughed as both he and Sam got to their feet. "After all that, you _still _want to go back? What the hell is wrong with you?" Sam remained silent as it laughed again. "Alright, alright. I'll cut you a deal: you let me take your spot in the Hunting Duo and I'll let you go back to school. As a bonus, I won't kill your brother." Sam cleared his throat and glared, but said nothing. "C'mon! I know it's what you want!"

"No deal," Sam said finally, retrieving his gun from where it had fallen at his feet.

At the same time as he picked it up, the doppelgänger had Dean's nickel-plated .45 pointed at him. "Shame. I was really hoping this would work out."

Dropping the gun, Sam charged his double, taking him to the ground. Leaves and dirt swirled around them as the two tussled, rolling one on top of the other until the doppelgänger got the upper hand.

"Now let's see what's really in that brain of yours!"

As the creature leaned forward to push Sam's shoulders into the ground, the sound of a gunshot ricocheting off a nearby tree startled both of them. Taking advantage of the distraction, Sam kicked off the doppelgänger and dove for his gun. As soon as his hands closed around the handle, he twirled it in the direction of the creature in one swift motion before squeezing off a shot.

A scream erupted from the thing's mouth loud enough to shatter eardrums. Clasping his hands to the side of his head, Sam watched and listened through muffled hearing as black ooze leaked from the creature's bullet wound and onto the dirt floor. In a matter of seconds, the doppelgänger's body deflated like a hot air balloon before the remaining skin flopped onto the ground like a discarded rubber glove.

Removing his hands from his ears, Sam got to his feet and to see Dean standing in the distance, a broad grin on his face.

"What?" Sam frowned, unsure as to what his brother was smiling about.

"Nothing," Dean smirked before turning his attention to the creature's remains. "That's nasty. Think we should bury it?"

"Probably," Sam sighed, using the toe of his sneaker to lift the once-hand of the doppelgänger. It fell limply aside like snake skin. "Or maybe we can just toss it under some dirt. I doubt anyone comes out this far."

"I like that plan," Dean said, kicking at the ground with his motorcycle boot until some of the dirt came unearthed. As the two of them got on their hands and knees and dug a shallow enough hole to dump the flaccid body of the creature, Dean looked up at Sam and grinned once again.

"What?" Sam demanded, furrowing his brow.

"Nothing."

Shaking his head, Sam got to his feet and helped his brother kick the skin into the hole before recovering the ground. By the time they were done, there was hardly any evidence that the earth had been disturbed.

"Good riddance," Dean smirked, clapping his hand on Sam's shoulder before leading the way back to the Impala. Silence fell between them as Dean continued to grin, Sam lost in his own thoughts. Halfway to the car, Dean stopped and turned to his brother. "Let me ask you something."

"Okay?"

"Why didn't you take the deal? The last time we had a conversation about hunting, you told me you were heading back to Stanford as soon as it was over. Why not let the dutiful double be my co-pilot?"

"Are you kidding?" Sam scoffed. "I'm not an idiot, Dean. I wouldn't trust some creature to take my place. It might have killed you after you got back in the car. Plus," Sam paused for a minute to crack a smile, "someone needs to watch your ass, and I doubt that thing could do it as well as I could."

"Hey, my ass doesn't need to be watched," Dean said, sounding offended, as he headed up the small hill leading to the Impala. "You're the one who needs help in that department."

"Yeah, right."

Grinning, Dean pulled the keys to the Impala from his pocket and opened the door. Before getting inside, Sam glanced at his brother over the roof and saw that Dean's eyes were on the blue Bronco Sam had stolen to drive his way to Grover Ridge. "Nice."

Shaking his head, Sam ducked into the car and slammed the door.


	10. Epilogue

Available for download in PDF. I promise you that I don't have any viruses. I just **strongly recommend **it seeing as this was written in book format. Visit the Tumblr dedicated to this series, "11785", for details.

Or just read it here (:

EPILOGUE

Main Street Motel  
>Green River, Arkansas<br>Friday, June 23, 2006  
>7:12 AM<p>

**D**ean grinned to himself as he helped Sam pack up their room. Ever since coming back from that clearing in Grover Ridge, things felt the way they should have been. Sam had gone with him to the bar—which was a slightly disappointing trip since Brenda the Australian wasn't there—and had even had a few beers with his brother before turning back into a pumpkin and heading to the motel before midnight. Dean, for the first time in a long time, had gone with him, and the two had stayed up for an hour afterward watching old re-runs of _Bewitched_.

The next morning, the mood didn't seem to have changed. Sam was silent, but not in the brooding, desolate way he had been before. Instead he just seemed thoughtful, as if he was still sorting through what the doppelgänger had said and deciding that he had made the right choice—not just because he didn't want a creature riding shotgun with his brother, but because he actually wanted to be there with Dean instead of back at Stanford.

The thought gave Dean comfort. Maybe now they really could be a family again—well, as soon as they found Dad.

Picking up his packed duffle, Dean shot a look at his brother to see him zipping up his own bag and throwing it over his shoulder. Heading toward the door, Sam removed the Do Not Disturb sign and tossed it inside before Dean placed his bag on the trunk of the Impala and headed toward the main office. As he rounded the door inside, the rumble of an engine gave him start, causing him to look toward the road. A black monster of a truck rolled by, reminding Dean faintly of his father.

After checking out, he returned to Sam, who was already inside of the car. Slipping into the driver's seat and starting the engine, Dean smirked at the intensity of his brother's glare at the road in front of him. Most likely, the truck driving by had sparked the same familiarity with Sam as it had with Dean.

"Dean," he said suddenly, breaking his stare as Dean put the car into drive. "Where do you think Dad is?"

Suddenly, Dean was reminded of a ten-year-old Sam. Though his brother was now twenty-three, the question brought up memories of when Sam often asked where Dean thought their father was during week-long hunts. Back then, he would always reply with some smart-ass remark, but this time, Dean just answered as honest as he could.

"Chasin' down that demon."

Sam fell silent as Dean directed the car toward the Interstate. As the interior of the Impala swelled with quiet, Dean squirmed under the weight of the unasked questions Sam was no doubt teeming with and the lack of answers Dean could provide. Instead, Dean did all he could do to help ease the worry, and reached forward to flip on the radio.

"_Ramble on. And now's the time, the time is now, to sing my song…_"


End file.
